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THE 



PEARL SPEAKER. 



COMPILED BY 



J. W. ORAHAM, 

AUTHOR OF 

Jessie Primary Series in Arithmetic," " Number Cards for First Grade," " Number 
Lessons for Second Grade," "Number Lessons for Third Grade." 



}L< 



isho v' 



Printed for the Author. 

Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South. 

Barbee & Smith, Agents, Nashville, Tenn. 

1890. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890, 

By J. W. Graham, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



~ 



PREFACE. 



" It needs to be emphasized that a capacity of the very highest excel- 
lence is often developed in those who, at the beginning of their training, 
are the most unpromising; and in a land like ours, where so many 
avenues of influence are open to those who can speak well in public, no 
institution is doing its duty by the young men committed to its charge 
that does not furnish such a coarse of training as to allow them to dis- 
cover—nay, force them to discover— their aptitude for oratory." 

" The highest of all arts is the art that captivates the affections, charms 
the understanding, and assuages or persuades the will of a popular as- 
sembly." 

These are the sentiments of two of the most enlightened of 
men, uttered two thousand years apart. If they are true — and no 
one will doubt it — it is certain that much of the usefulness of the 
teacher, and some of his most acute pleasures, must spring 
from training his pupils in oratory. In the schools of to-day are 
the orators of to-morrow ; and not only its orators, but its citi- 
zens of power and influence. 

Our social life is honeycombed with thousands of fraternal 
and industrial organizations. These, we believe, constitute one 
of the supreme bulwarks of our republic, because they inculcate 
virtue, charity, thrift, and nobleness of life, and because in their 
more than three millions of members they contain the flower 
of American manhood. 

Our youth will soon fill the ranks of these associations, and 
we regard it as a lofty part of the teacher's mission to so train 
them in the power of utterance that they may be able to vindi- 
cate the right before their fellows with ability and self-confi- 
dence. 

To aid in this training this book is submitted after many years 
of close observation of the tastes and preferences of school-boys. 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

It is confidently believed that all the selections are so marked 
with the real spirit of declamation that no one possessing this 
book will ever have any difficulty in "finding a speech." 

To teachers reading this book two suggestions are offered with 
the utmost confidence. Let every historical and biographical 
reference be developed by the pupil to his fullest ability. Let 
every piece, after its delivery by the pupil, be written two or 
three times from memory, and the writing compared with the 
original. This practice will secure results in English expression 
of the most pronounced and most satisfactory character. 

To declaimers in all classes of schools this book is submitted, 
in the hope that it will prove to be " the very thing they have 
needed for a long time." 

August 1, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

From Defense of Armageddon.— Fountain E. Pitts 9 

The Same Continued 11 

Griffin against Cheatham for Libel 12 

Under Which Flag? — John W. Daniel, on Robert E. Lee 14 

A People Is Its Own Judge.— John W. Daniel , 16 

The March to Appomattox.— John W. Daniel 18 

Jacob Henry in the North Carolina Legislature 20 

The Impressment of American Seamen'.— Richard Rush 22 

The Meanest Entitled to the Protection of Our Laws.— Richard Rush.. 24 

Mississippi Contested Election. — S. S. Prentiss 26 

Continuation of the Same 28 

The Impressment of American Seamen. — No. 2. — Richard Rush 31 

Gen. Washington to His Troops before the Battle of Long Island 34 

Character of Lafayette. — S. S. Prentiss 35 

Eulogy on Lafayette.— S. S. Prentiss 37 

The Confederate Dead.— Gen. Wm. B. Bate 39 

The Same Continued 41 

Continuation of the Same .' 44 

The "290" (Alabama).— Gen. Wm. B. Bate 46 

Washington.— George William Curtiss 48 

The Lessons of the Life of Lee.— John W. Daniel 51 

The Lessons of the Life of Lee (Continued) 53 

Requiescat. — John W. Daniel 55 

True Heroism.— John W. Daniel 56 

The Arch Fiend.— Dr. Talmage 58 

The New South.— No. 2.— Henry W. Grady 60 

Thoughts on the Battle-field of Fort Donelson.— John F. House 62 

Henry W. Grady.— John Temple Graves 64 

Robert E. Lee.— John B. Gordon 66 

Memorial Day. — The Nashville American 68 

The Sword of Lee.— Father Ryan 69 

Robert E. Lee.— J. Barron Hope 71 

In Memory of the Confederate Dead.— Wm. C. P. Breckenridge 75 

Intolerance.— William J. Armstrong 77 

Roger Williams.— William J. Armstrong 80 

Mother. — Anonymous 83 

Fall of Warsaw.— Thomas Campbell 85 

Henry W. Grady.— Dr. J. W. Lee 86 

Andrew Jackson.— Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald 89 

Duluth.— Proctor Knott 92 

Same Continued.— No. 2 91 

The Idea of Deity 96 

The New Political Era.— Henry George 97 

(5) 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Xew South.— Henry W. Grady.— Xo. 1 99 

A Disclaimer of Injustice to the Negro.— Henry YV. Grady 101 

Dr. Deems at Hopkinsville Monument 103 

Southern Love for the Negro.— Henry W. Grady 106 

What Is Minority? 108 

The Confederate Dead.— Col. John F. House 110 

The Same Concluded Ill 

Adams and Jefferson.— Wirt 114 

Dying Speech of Marino Faliero. {Adapted.) 117 

Tribute to Jefferson Davis.— John W. Daniels 119 

The Employment of Indians against Americans.— Lord Chatham 122 

Lord Chatham on His Motion to Amend the Address to the Throne 123 

An Optimist Traveling in the South. — Howard Henderson 126 

Adams and Jefferson. — Webster 127 

The Veto Power.— Henry Clay 129 

Jefferson Davis. — John Randolph Tucker.. 131 

Continuation of the Same 134 

Defense of One on Trial for Murder.— John J. Crittenden 135 

Bum. {Adapted.) 138 

Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua.— E. Kellogg 140 

Spartacus to the Roman Envoys.— E. Kellogg 142 

Rienzi to the Romans.— Mary Russell Mitford 145 

The Soldier's Dream.— Thomas Campbell 146 

Resistance to British Aggression.— Patrick Henry 147 

Continuation of the Same 150 

North American Indians.— Sprague 151 

Supposed Speech of John Adams.— Webster 153 

Conclusion of the Preceding 155 

Imperishability of Great Examples.— Everett 156 

The Baron's Last Banquet. — Albert G. Greene 157 

Destruction of Sennacherib. — Lord Byron 1C0 

South Carolina and Massachusetts, 1830.— Webster 161 

American Literature.— Grimke , 163 

Death of Lafayette.— S. S. Prentiss 165 

The Lone Star of Texas.— Webb 1G6 

The South During the Revolution.— Hayne, 1833 168 

Part of Emmet's Defense 159 

Part of Emmet's Defense. (Xo. 2.) 172 

Emmet's Defense. (Part 3.) 174 

Cataline's Defiance.— Croly 177 

William Tell and Switzerland.— Knowles 178 

William Tell among the Mountains.— Knowles 179 

A Psalm of Life.— Longfellow 180 

Gen. Rain's Reply 181 

The Problem of the Hour.— Henry W. Grady 184 

Rolla's Speech. — Sheridan 186 

Centennial Address.— Judge Story 187 

"If lie Live till Sundown To-morrow, He Will Get Well.— Henry W. 

Grady 188 

Young Men and Temperance.— Cuyler 191 

The Corrupters of Youth Abandon Their Victims.— Beecher 193 



CONTENTS. 7 

PAGE 

A Midnight Murder. — Anonymous 194 

Washington and Clay. — Charlton 194 

Speech on the Trial of a Murderer. — Daniel Webster 196 

Soliloquy of Henry IV. — Shakespeare 199 

The Closing Year. — Prentice 200 

The Dying Alchemist.— Willis 203 

Alcohol 206 

American Progress. — Hilliard 206 

Honor to Our Workmen. — H. Clay Preuss 208 

Death of Hamilton.— Dr. Mason y 209 

An Eloquent Peroration.— Revercly Johnson 211 

Virginia— D. W. Voorhees 212 

Bonaparte.— E. A. Nisbet 213 

Bonaparte. — Charles Phillips. (Written after his second abdication.) 214 

Expunging Eesolutions in the United States Senate. — H. Clay 217 

The Union. — Matthew Ranson 218 

Effects of Intemperance.— Henry W. Miller 219 

Ignorance in Our Country a Crime.— H. Mann 221 

The South.— Henry W. Grady at Boston 223 

James Otis in 1765. — Lydia Maria Child 225 

The Natural and Moral Worlds.— Grimke 227 

The Future of the South.— W. P. C. Breckenridge at Hopkinsville, Ky. 230 

Speech of Walpole in Reproof of Mr. Pitt 231 

Pitt's Reply to Robert Walpole 233 

Eulogy on Lafayette.— Charles Sprague 234 

Napoleon and His Acquisitions.— Thomas Corwin 237 

The Resurrection of Italy.— Thomas Francis Meagher 239 

There Are No Dead.— Bulwer 240 

Traces of the Ocean.— Hugh Miller 241 

The Last Man.— Campbell 242 

Hohenlinden.— Campbell 245 

The Pauper's Drive. — Thomas Noel 246 

The Ocean.— Byron 247 

Erin.— Thomas N. Burke 248 

Destiny of America. — Story 251 

A Withering Invective.— S. S. Prentiss 252 

Tribute to Washington. — Harrison 254 

Criminality of Dueling.— Nott 255 

The Patriot's Elysium.— Montgomery 258 

The Smack in School.— Anonymous 259 

Occasional Epilogue. — Anonymous 260 

Press On.— Benjamin 260 

Defense of a Client.— S. S. Prentiss 261 

The Best of Liquor 263 

Intemperance 264 

Address to the Army of Italy 266 

Never Give Up 267 

Warning to the Young 268 

Fate of the Indians 269 

Regulus to the Carthaginians. — E. Kellogg 270 

The Famine in Ireland.— S. S. Prentiss 273 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Nature.— Dow, Jr 274 

Be Faithful to Your Country. — Everett 276 

Character of Pitt— Robertson 277 

To the Eagle 279 

Character of Blennerhassett. — Wirt 280 

Character of William Penn.— Duponeeau 283 

Burial of Sir John Moore. — Wolfe 284 

A Farewell to Scotland.— Pringle 285 

America.— Phillips 286 

Flogging in the Navy. — Commodore Stockton 287 

Salathiel to Titus.— Croly 1 289 

Washington.— Phillips 291 

America 292 

The Adventurers in the Mayflower.— Everett 294 

Character of Napoleon.— Phillips 295 

Necessity of Pure National Morality.— Beecher 296 

Corruption, the Cause of the Fall of States.— Croly 298 

Against the Infidelity of Thomas Paine.— Phillips 299 

Extract from a Speech of Edmund Burke 302 

The American Patriot's Song.— Anonymous 303 

Darkness. — Byron 304 

Pulaski's Banner. — Anonymous 306 

Byron— Pollok 307 

Only a Private.— F. W. Dawson 309 

Sheridan at the Trial of Warren Hastings 310 

Conclusion of Preceding 311 

Extract from Eulogy on James B. Beck.— J. J. Ingalls... 312 

Irish Aliens.— R. L. Shiel 314 

Archer Anderson at the Dedication of the Monument to Lee 316 

B. H. Hill at Atlanta in 1876 317 

B. F. Ward at Winona, Miss 319 



THE PEARL SPEAKER 



From Defense of Armageddon. — Fountain E. 
Pitts.* 

We are the grandest people on the face of the 
earth. The great heart of oar magnanimous country 
beats responsive to the sighs and sorrows of all na- 
tions. Our peaceful land is the hospitable home of 
the oppressed of every country. Our laws are the 
transcript of eternal justice. Though we have 
neither titled dukes nor hereditary lords, yet the 
emoluments of profit and honor are offered to the 
deserving of all classes, and our loftiest promotions 
are accessible to the humblest poor. Though de- 
nounced abroad by an aristocracy that dooms its own 
pauper millions to proscription, beggary, and starva- 
tion, yet our institutions are the pulsations of health 
compared with the plague-spots of Europe. 

Already have hundreds of thousands of our Afri- 
can population become the Christianized children of 
God — a greater number of Christian converts than 
are to be found in the missions of all the denomina- 
tions on the earth. Our ministers of mercy have 
gone to every heathen shore, and preached glad ti- 
dings to every island that dots the bosom of the ocean. 
Beams of light radiating from this central home of 

* Delivered by Invitation before Congress, February 22, 1857. 

(9) 



10 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

civil and religious liberty already break upon the dis- 
tant millions that weep in the shadow of death. 

When the noble Greek is crushed by the hoof of 
Turkish despotism, the halls of our Senate are elo- 
quent with a sympathy that responds in the bosom of a 
whole people. When the cry of starvation was heard 
from ill - fated Ireland, American transports were 
freighted with the munificent offerings of a generous 
people. Moved by a magnanimity which knows no 
parallel, our swift ships are sent to recover England's 
lost navigators in the regions of eternal snow. 

We have the one living and true God, one religion, 
one Constitution, one republic, one nationality: a 
true religion and a true civil government, that are 
the Israel that was to come, the "nation born at 
once," born on the 4th of July, 1776. ^-— - 

What nation presents such a spectacle at this very 
moment as the United States? Our literary institu- 
tions are scattered all over the land, so that the 
humblest poor may be enriched with the treasures of 
science, while millions of sheets in the republic of 
letters pour floods of light on the human mind. Here 
the press is free, that mighty enginery of thought, 
guarding the majesty of law and the inviolable sanc- 
tity of the Constitution. Here the pulpit, unawed by 
the terrors of the throne, in tones of power and 
tongues of flame, " proclaims the acceptable year of 
the Lord." Here the word of God is an unchained 
book, and, like the sun in mid-heaven, rifts the clouds 
that mantle the world, shedding a strong and steady 
light upon the shadowy mansions of the dead, inspir- 
ing the living with the ecstatic hope that our loved 
and lost shall awake from their beds in the last, glori- 
ous morning. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 11 

The Same Continued. 

The stupendous conflict of Armageddon — the final 
battle of prophecy — will take place in the valley of 
the Mississippi. The hosts of civil and religious lib- 
erty will be massed against the multitudinous cohorts 
of monarchy. The United States of America, young 
and vigorous, arising in the northern temperate zone, 
extends its borders from sea to sea, and from the lakes 
on the north to Heaven only knows how far south. 
She is the enlightened and uncompromising repre- 
sentative of popular freedom. And there is Kussia, 
in gigantic proportions, arising also in the northern 
temperate zone, with her million of warriors, now oc- 
cupying one-seventh of the earth, stretching from the 
Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean, from the Baltic on the 
west till her Cossacks hear the drum-beats in Far- 
ther India. She is the representative of absolutism. 

These ascending powers, like two towering clouds 
culminating in the heavens, surcharged with elec- 
tric ruin, will shock the world with their collision, 
and bathe the earth in blood. The myriad empires 
of the globe will be allied with Eussia, except the 
beautiful France. The genius of France — the child 
of prophecy — rejoicing in the downfall of monarchy, 
shall be with us in the end as she was in the begin- 
ning. But England, true to her proud aristocracy, 
will die for the divine right of kings. Her policy 
will not be influenced by language, religion, or blood, 
but in the final onset she will join the crusade against 
America. 

How vast and wide and dreadful will be the car- 
nage of the battle of Armageddon, when seven months 
will be occupied in burying the dead, and the wrecks 
of the struggle will furnish fuel for seven years. 



12 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

So will close the conflict of the world. Pseans of 
gladness will ring through the earth, while emanci- 
pated millions will swell the general joy. "And I 
heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and 
as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of 
mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord 
God omnipotent reigneth! " 

Henceforth, "nations shall learn war no more." 
Confederated republics, under the counsel and exam- 
ple of the United States, will arise in the former 
"habitations of the dragons," and the "deserts" of 
cruelty shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. Like 
an elder brother, our republic will kindly instruct 
them in the principles of popular freedom, and the 
gospel of the Son of God will have universal welcome 
among the nations of the earth. The cloudless 
splendor from "a new heaven" will beam upon the 
inhabitants of "a new earth" in that happy thousand 
years. Then the apocalyptic angel, having the ever- 
lasting gospel to preach to every nation and people 
and tongue, will sweep the breadth of heaven, and as 
his silvery pinions of light shave the level horizon 
every island and continent shall bow obsequious to 
his message. 

Griffin against Cheatham for Libel. 
I am one of those who believe that the heart of the 
willful and deliberate libel er is blacker than that of 
the highway robber, or than he who perpetrates the 
crime of midnight arson. The man who plunders on 
the highway may have the semblance of apology for 
the outrage he commits: an affectionate wife may be {fin- 
ing away for lack of subsistence, a circle of helpless chil- 
dren may raise their tiny hands in vain supplicating 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 13 

for food, the high mandate of imperative necessity- 
may for a time crowd truth and honor and pride 
and discretion out of his soul. The mild features 
of the husband and father intermingle with those of 
the robber, and soften the roughness of the shade. 

But the robber of character plunders that which 
does not enrich him, though it makes his neighbor 
poor indeed. The man who fires his neighbor's 
dwelling in the darkness of midnight does him an 
injuiy that can be repaired, for industry can rear 
another habitation. The storm may descend and 
wreck the roof that covers his head, and leave the 
wind to whistle around his uncovered family; but 
courage lifts up his heart and hopes, and a light 
breaks in upon him from the future. But what con- 
solation can cheer the heart of him whose character 
has been torn from him ? What though he be innocent ? 
A consciousness that he is in the center of a wilder- 
ness settles cold and chill around his heart, for 
whither shall he go? Shall he dedicate himself to 
the service of his country? Will his country receive 
him, and employ in her councils and in her armies 
the man at whom is pointed the "slow, unmoving 
finger of scorn? " Shall he betake himself to the fire- 
side? The story of his disgrace will enter his own 
door before him. 

And can he bear, think you, can he bear the sym- 
pathizing agonies of a distressed wife? Can he en- 
dure the forbidding presence of scrutinizing, sneer- 
ing domestics? Will his children receive instruction 
from a disgraced father? Gentlemen, I am telling 
the plain story of my client's wrongs. By the ruth- 
less hand of malice his character has been wantonly 
massacred, and he now appears before a jury of his 



14 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

country for redress. Will you, can you deny liim this 
redress? Is there any thing in character that men 
should place a value on it? Ah, my friends! I will 
not insult your intelligence with an argument. 
There are certain things to argue which is the 
rankest treason against God and nature. The Author 
of our being did not intend to leave this point afloat 
at the mercy of opinion, but with his own hand he 
planted in the soul of man an instinctive love of 
character. This lofty and superb sentiment has no 
affinity to pride. It is the ennobling quality of the 
soul; and if we have hitherto been elevated above the 
ranks of surrounding creation, human nature owes 
its elevation to the love of character. 

It is the love of character for which the poet 
has sung, the philosopher toiled, the hero bled. It 
was the love of character which wrought miracles in 
ancient Greece, and it was the love of character on 
which the eagle of Rome rose to empire. To-day it 
is that love of character, animating the bosoms of her 
sons, on which America must depend in the sublime 
crises of her existence. Will a jury weaken this, our 
country's hope? Will they by their verdict pro- 
nounce to the youth of our country that character 
is scarce worth the possessing? Philosophy may 
smile over the destruction of property, religion may 
extend a heavenly look of forgiveness to the murder- 
er, but it is not, it cannot be in the heart of man to 
bear the lacerations of slander. 



Under Which Flag?— John W. Daniel, on Rob- 
ert E. Lee. 
What was the situation in 1861 of Robert E. Lee? 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 15 

On the border line of two hostile empires, girding 
their loins for as stern a fight as ever tested warrior's 
steel, he beholds each beckoning to him to lead its peo- 
ple to battle. On the one hand Virginia summons 
him to share her lot in the perilous adventure. The 
young Confederacy is without an army, without a 
navy, and without a currency. There are few teem- 
ing workshops and arsenals. There is little but a 
meager and widely scattered populace, for the most 
part men of the field, the prairie, the forest, and the 
mountain, ready to stand the hazard of an audacious 
endeavor, to meet aggression with whatever weapons 
freemen can lay their hands on, and to carry high the 
banners of the free, whatever may betide. 

And should he fail! Ah, what then should he fail! 
His beloved State would be trampled in the mire of 
the ways; the Confederacy would be blotted from the 
family of nations; home and country would survive 
only in memory and in name; his people would be 
captives, their very slaves their masters; and he, if he 
thought of himself at all, might have seen in the dim 
perspective of gloom the shadow of the dungeon or 
the scaffold. 

On the other hand stands the foremost and most 
powerful republic of the earth, rich in all that handi- 
work can fashion or that gold can secure. It has a 
dense population and a regular army, while a myriad 
of volunteers rush to do its bidding. Its navy rides the 
Western seas in undisputed sway. Its treasury teems 
with the sinews of war, and its arsenals overflow with 
weapons. Its capital lies in sight of his chamber 
window, and its guns bear on the portals of his home. 
A messenger from the President of this stalwart re- 
public tenders him the supreme command of its 



16 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

forces. If he accept it, and if he shall succeed, the 
conqueror's crown awaits him, and, win or lose, he 
will remain the foremost man of a mighty nation, with 
all the honor that riches and office and power and 
public applause can supply. 

Since the Son of man stood upon the mount and 
saw all the kingdoms of the earth stretched before 
him, and turned away from them to the agony and 
bloody sweat of Gethsemane, and to the cross of Cal- 
vary beyond, no follower of the meek and lowly 
Saviour can have undergone a more trying ordeal, or 
met it with a higher spirit of heroic sacrifice. 

Draw his sword against Virginia! Perish the 
thought! Over all the voices that called him he 
heard the still small voice that ever whispers to the 
soul of the spot that gave it birth, and over every am- 
bitious dream rose the face of the angel that guards 
the door of home. 

Thus came Kobert E. Lee to the State of his birth 
and to the people of his blood in their hour of need. 
Thus, with as chaste a heart as ever plighted faith 
until death, he came to do, to suffer, to die for us who 
are gathered to-day in awful reverence and in sorrow 
unspeakable to weep our blessings on his tomb. 



A People Is Its Own Judge. — John W. Daniel. 
I pause not here to defend the course of General 
Lee, as that defense may be drawn from the Consti- 
tution of a republic which was born in the sublime 
protest of a people against bayonet rule, and founded 
on the bed-rock principle of free government, that 
all free governments " must derive their just powers 
from the consent of the governed." I pause not to 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 17 

trace the history or define the theory of constitutional 
construction, which maintained the right of seces- 
sion from the union as an element of sovereign state- 
hood — a theory that has found ablest and noblest ad- 
vocacy in every section of the country. The tribunal 
is not yet formed that would hearken to such a de- 
fense, nor is this the time or place to utter it. And 
to my mind there is for Lee and his compatriots a 
loftier and truer vindication than any that may be 
deduced from codes, constitutions, and conventional 
articles of government. A great revolution need 
never apologize or explain itself. There it is! The 
august and thrilling rise of a whole population. 
None but great aspirations underlie great actions, and 
none but great causes can ever produce great events. 
A transient gust of passion may turn a crowd into a 
mob, a temporary impulse may swell a mob into local 
insurrection; but when a whole people stand to their 
guns before their hearth-stones, and as one man resist 
what they deem aggression; when for long years they 
endure poverty and starvation, and dare danger and 
death to maintain principles they deem sacred; when 
they shake a continent with their heroic endeavors, 
and fill the world with the glory of their achieve- 
ments — history can make for them no higher vindica- 
tion than to point to their deeds and cry: "Behold! " 
A people must be its own judge! Under God there 
can be no higher judge or court to fear. In the su- 
preme moments of national life, as in the lives of in- 
dividuals, the actor must resolve and act within him- 
self alone. The Southern States acted for themselves, 
the Northern States acted for themselves, and Vir- 
ginia for herself; and when the lines of battle 
formed Kobert Lee took his place in the line beside 
2 



18 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

his people, his kindred, his children, his home. Let 
his defense rest on this fact alone. Nature speaks it, 
and nothing can strengthen it, as nothing can weaken 
it. The historian may compile, the casuist may dis- 
sect, the statesman may expatiate, the advocate may 
plead, the jurist may expound ; but, after all, there 
can be no stronger tie than that which binds the 
faithful heart to kindred and home. And on that tie, 
stretching from the cradle to the grave, spanning the 
heavens, and riveted through eternity to the throne of 
God on high, and underneath in the souls and hearts 
of men good and true — on that tie rests, stainless and 
immortal, the fame of Robert Lee. 



The March to Appomattox. — John W. Daniel. 
Yain was the mighty struggle led by the peerless 
Lee. Genius planned, valor executed, patriotism 
stripped itself of every treasure, and heroism fought 
and bled and died, and all in vain! When the drear 
winter of '64 came there came with it the sad premoni- 
tions of the end. " The very seed-corn of the Con- 
federacy had been ground up," as was said by Presi- 
dent Davis. The peopl e sat at naked tables and slept in 
sheetless beds, for their apparel had been used to bind 
up wounds. The weeds grew in fenceless fields, 
and the plow-horse was pulling the cannon. The 
church-yard and the mansion fences had been 
stripped of their leaden ornaments that the rifle 
and the musket might not lack for bullets. The 
church-bells, now melted into cannon, pealed forth 
the dire notes of war. The land was drained of its 
substance, and the Army of Northern Virginia was 
nearly exhausted for want of food and raiment. All 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 19 

through the bleak winter days and nights, its deci- 
mated and shivering ranks still faced the dense bat- 
talions of Grant in misery and want not less than that 
which stained the snows of Valley Forge; and the 
army seemed to live only on its innate and indomita- 
ble will. Like a rock of old ocean, it had received, 
and broken, and hurled back into the deep, in bloody 
foam, those swiftly succeeding waves of four years of 
incessant battle.. But now the very rock itself was 
wearing away, and still the waves came on. 

Yes, a new enemy was approaching the Army of 
Northern Virginia, and this time in the rear. The 
homes of the Southern soldiers in Lee's army were 
now in ashes. Wives, mothers, and sisters were 
wanderers under a winter sky, flying from the in- 
vaders who smote and spared not in their relentless 
march. Is it a wonder that hearts that never quailed 
before bayonet or blade beat now with tremulous and 
irrepressible emotion? Is it a wonder that in the 
watches of the night the sentinel in the trenches, 
tortured to excruciation with the thought that those 
dearest of earth to him were without an arm to save, 
felt his soul sink in anguish and his hope perish ? So 
it was that, with hunger and nakedness as its com- 
panions, and foes in front and foes in rear, the Army 
of Northern Virginia seemed bound to the rock of 
fate. But yet these scarred and sinewy veterans of 
fifty fields, their glories still about them, their man- 
hood triumphant still, make one more charge upon 
the serried hosts of the foe; the blue line breaks be- 
fore them, and they sweep the field toward Lynch- 
burg, victors still. 

But ah! too late! too late. Behind the flying sa- 
bers and rifles of Sheridan rise the bayonets and 



20 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

frown the batteries of the Army of the James. Too 
late! The die is cast. The doom is sealed. There 
is no escape. The eagle is quarried in his eyrie; the 
wounded lion is hunted to his lair. 

And so the guns of the last charge died away on 
the morning air; an echo, like the sob of a mighty 
sea, rolled up the valley of the James, and all was 
still. The last fight of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia had been fought. The smoke had vanished. 
The startled birds renewed their songs over the 
stricken fields, the battle smell was drowned in the 
fragrance of the flowering spring, and the ragged sol- 
dier of the South, God bless him ! stood there facing 
the dread reality, more terrible than death, stood 
there to grapple with and face down despair, for he 
had done his all, and all was lost save imperishable 
honor. 



Jacob Heney in the North Carolina Legisla- 
ture. 
The proud champions of liberty knew that the 
purest homage man could render to the Almighty 
was in the sacrifice of his passions, and in the per- 
formance of his duties; that the Ruler of the uni- 
verse would receive with equal benignity the various 
offerings of man's adoration if they proceeded from a 
humble spirit and a sincere mind; that intolerance in 
matters of faith had been from the earliest ages of 
the world the severest torments by which mankind 
could be afflicted, and that governments were only 
concerned about the actions of men, and not about 
their consciences. Who among us feels himself so 
exalted above his fellows as to have a right to die- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 21 

tate to tliem his mode of belief? Shall this free 
country set an example of persecution which even the 
returning reason of enslaved Europe would not sub- 
mit to? Will you bind the conscience in chains, and 
fasten conviction upon the mind in spite of the con- 
clusions of reason, and of those ties and habitudes 
which are blended with every pulsation of the heart? 
Are you prepared to plunge from the sublime heights 
of moral legislation into the dark and gloomy caverns 
of superstitious ignorance? Will you drive from 
your shores and from the shelter of your constitutions 
all who do not lay their oblations upon the same altar, 
observe the same ritual, and subscribe to the same 
dogmas? If so, which among the varied sects into 
which we are divided shall be the favored one? I 
should insult the understanding of this House to sup- 
pose it possible that they would ever assent to such 
absurdities; for every human being knows that per- 
secution in all its shapes and modifications is contrary 
to the genius of our government and the spirit of our 
laws, and that it can never produce any other effect 
than to make men hypocrites or martyrs. 

Nothing is more easily demonstrated than that the 
conduct alone is the subject of human laws, and that 
man ought to suffer civil disqualification for what he 
does, and not for what he thinks. The mind can re- 
ceive laws only from Him of whose divine essence it 
is a part. He alone can punish our disobedience, for 
who else can know our movements or estimate their 
merits? The religion which I profess inculcates 
every duty which man owes to his fellow-men; it en- 
joins upon its votaries the practice of every virtue 
and the detestation of every vice; it teaches them to 
hope for the favor of Heaven exactly in proportion as 



22 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

their lives are directed by just, honorable, or benefi- 
cent maxims. This then, gentlemen, is my creed; it 
was impressed upon my infant mind, it has been the 
director of my youth, the monitor of my manhood, 
and will, I trust, be the consolation of my old age. 
At any rate, I am sure you cannot see any thing in 
this religion to deprive me of my seat in this House. 
So far as relates to my life and conduct, the exami- 
nation of these I submit with cheerfulness to your 
candid and liberal construction. 

I have never considered it my duty to pry into the 
belief of other members of this House; if their 
actions are upright and their conduct just, the rest is 
for their own consideration and not for mine. I do 
not seek to make converts to my faith, whatever it 
may be esteemed in the eyes of my officious friends, 
nor do I exclude any man from my friendship or es- 
teem because he and I differ in that respect. The 
same charity, therefore, it is not unreasonable to ex- 
pect, will be extended to myself, because in all things 
that relate to the State and to the duties of civil life 
I am bound by the same obligations with my fellow- 
citizens; nor does any man subscribe more sincerely 
than myself to the maxim: "Whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 



The Impressment of American Seamen.— Richard 
Rush, 
The seizure of the persons of American citizens 
under the name and pretexts of impressment by 
naval officers of Great Britain, is an outrage of that 
kind which makes it difficult to speak of it in terms 
of appropriate description. It is certain that the 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 23 

most careful researches into history will find no ex- 
ample of the systematic perpetration of an offense of 
a similar nature, and perpetrated too under a claim of 
right. To take a just and no other than a serious il- 
lustration, the only parallel to it is to be found in the 
African slave-trade; and if an eminent statesman 
of England once spoke of the latter as the greatest 
practical evil that had ever afflicted mankind, we may 
be allowed to denominate the former as the greatest 
practical offense that has ever been offered to a civil- 
ized independent State. 

But the British say: " We want not your men; we 
want only our own." Prove that they are yours, and we 
will surrender them. Basest of outrages! most in- 
solent of indignities! that a free-born American must 
be made to prove his nativity to those who have pre- 
viously violated his liberty, else he is to be held for- 
ever as a slave. That before a British tribunal a 
free-born American must be made to seal up the 
vouchers of his lineage, to exhibit the records of his 
baptism and birth, to establish the identity that binds 
him to his parents, to his blood, to his native land; 
that all this must be done as the condition of his es- 
cape from the galling thralldom of a British ship! 
Can we bear it? can we think of it with any other 
than indignant feelings at our tarnished name and 
nation? And suppose through this degrading process 
his deliverance to be effected, where is he to seek re- 
dress from the immediate wrong? To whom shall 
our imprisoned citizen, when the privilege of shak- 
ing off his fetters has been accorded to him, turn for 
his redress? Where shall he look to re-imburse the 
stripes, the wounds, the worn spirit, the long inward 
agony? No, the public code of nations recognizes 



24 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

not the penalty, for to the modern rapaciousness of 
Britain it was reserved to add to the dark catalogue 
of human sufferings this most flagitious crime. 

But why be told that even on such proofs as these 
our citizens will be released ? Go to the Department 
of State, within sight of where we are assembled, 
and see the piles of certificates and documents and 
records and seals, and see how they rest, and forever 
will rest upon the shelves. And this Great Britain 
cannot but know. She does know it, and, with delib- 
erate mockery, in which bloated power can scoff at 
submission and humble suffering, has she continued 
to increase and protract our humiliation. 



The Meanest Entitled to the Protection of Our 
Laws. — Richard Bush. 

I am a Roman citizen! I am a Roman citizen! was 
.an exclamation that insured safety, commanded re- 
spect, or inspired terror in all parts of the world. 
And although the mild temper of our government ex- 
acts not all these attributes, we may be suffered to 
deplore, with hearts of agony and shame, that while 
the inhabitants of every other part of the globe enjoy 
an immunity from the seizure of their persons, except 
under the fate of war, to be an American citizen has, 
for five and twenty years, been the signal for insult 
and the passport to captivity. Let it not be said 
that the men they take are sometimes not such as to 
attract the concern of the government. If they were 
all so, it lessens in nowise the enormity of the out- 
rage. It adds indeed a fresh indignity to mention it. 
The sublime equality of justice recognizes no such 
distinction, and a government founded on the great 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 25 

basis of equal right would forget one of its funda- 
mental duties if in the exercise of its protecting pow- 
er it admits to a foreign nation the least distinction 
between what it owes to the lowest and meanest, and 
the highest and most exalted of its citizens. 

Sometimes it is said that but few of our citizens 
are seized. Progressive and foul aggravation! to ad- 
mit the crime to our faces and seek to screen its 
atrocity under its limited extent. Whence but from 
a source hardened with long rapine could such a pal- 
liation flow? It is false. The melancholy memorials 
of that same department attest that there are thou- 
sands of our countrymen at this moment in the slavery 
of their ships. And if there were but one hundred, 
if there were but fifty, if there were but one, how 
dare they insult a sovereign nation with such an an- 
swer? Shall I state to you a fact that shows all the 
excess of shame that should flush our faces at sub- 
mission to outrage so foul? Now mark you this: 
Two of the nephews of your immortal Washington 
were seized, dragged on board a British ship, and 
were there imprisoned for a year before they were re- 
stored to their liberty. How can you, Americans, sit 
down under such indignities? Tell me to which of 
their princes, their nobles, their regents will you al- 
low, in the just pride of men and freemen, that those 
who stand in bloodship to the illustrious founder of 
your liberties are second in all their claims to safety 
and protection? But we must leave this odious and 
hateful subject. It swells indeed with ever fruitful 
expansion to the indignant view, and while it animates 
it is loathsome. 

This crime of impressment may be justly considered 
as transcending the amount of all the other wrongs 



26 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

we have received. Notwithstanding the millions 
that have been wrested from ns by the cupidity of 
Britain, of France, of Spain, of Denmark, the sum of 
all must be estimated below this enormity. Ships 
and merchandise belong to individuals, and may be 
valued, may be endured as subjects of negotiation; 
but men are the property of the nation. In every 
American's face a part of our country's constitution 
is written. It is the living emblem of its character, 
its independence, and its rights — its quick and cher- 
ished insignium, toward which the nation should 
ever demand the most scrupulous inviolable immuni- 
ty. Man was created in the image of his God. 
When he is made a slave where shall there be re-im- 
bursement? No, fellow-citizens, under the assistance 
and protection of the Most High the evil must be 
stopped. The blessings of peace itself become a 
curse while such a stain is permitted to rest upon our 
annals. 

Mississippi Contested Election.— S. S. Prentiss. 
Have the gentlemen considered well the attitude in 
which they place themselves by this course? Was 
not their better angel nodding — nay, was he not 
asleep at his post when they resolved upon it? Was 
there nothing in the manner or circumstances under 
which that decision was obtained, which should make 
them feel a particular delicacy in using it for the pur- 
pose of smothering this investigation? Whither has 
tied that lofty magnanimity which at the last session 
induced the gentlemen to institute proceedings against 
themselves, for the purpose of ascertaining the rights 
of their constituents; that delicate sensibility that 
could not brook a shadow of doubt as to the legiti- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 27 

macy of their representative character; that fostering 
protection of the elective franchise; that deep vener- 
ation for the voice of the people; that ready obedi- 
ence to their will? 

Do the gentlemen really wish to represent the peo- 
ple of Mississippi, whether they will or not? Do they 
actually intend to set up a majority of seventeen 
votes here against a majority of seven thousand at 
home? Did they obtain this decision for the purpose 
of extending the powers delegated to them by the 
people? Whom do they consider their constituents, 
the people of Mississippi, or the members of this 
House, that they should base their rights here upon 
the action and will of the latter instead of the for- 
mer? Does not their valor outrun their discretion in 
this matter? A bold man was he, that ancient one, 
who stole the fire of heaven and hid it in a hollow 
reed; but not less bold is he who would steal the 
elective franchise from the people of a whole State, 
and conceal it in a hollow decision of this house. 
Let them remember the fate of Prometheus, " the vult- 
ure and the rock." I cast down my glove, and chal- 
lenge them to do battle upon the merits of this cause. 
What! are they afraid to break a lance or shiver a 
spear in fair lists upon the open plain, that thus si- 
lent and sullen they retire behind the wall, and hide 
in an entrenchment, constructed for the very purpose 
of protecting themselves against their constituents? 
Perhaps they are content with the laurels won on a 
former occasion, when in right knightly style they 
held a passage at arms and challenged all comers. 
They pranced in gallant guise around the lists, and 
their trumpet of defiance rang forth loud and clear. 
But well they knew, the while, that two thousand long 



28 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

miles, with many a lofty mountain and many a broad 
and rushing river, intervened between themselves and 
those whom they thus summoned to the contest. 
That summons is at length answered by the people 
of Mississippi, on whose behalf and as a humble 
champion of whose rights I now appear. Fast and 
far I have ridden to meet the gentlemen's high defi- 
ance. Ivanhoe has returned from the Holy Land, 
and the disinherited knight dares the proud templar 
to the combat. 

For the last time, in the name of Mississippi, the 
lady-love whose gage we both profess to wear, I call 
these gentlemen to meet this controversy upon a fair 
and open field. 

If they decline this challenge, I will attack the for- 
tress in which they have taken refuge. I will either 
storm it or starve it into surrender. But let these 
gentlemen remember that they have rendered them- 
selves liable to the operation of that rule of war which 
denies quarter to those who attempt to defend an un- 
tenable position. 

Continuation of the Same. 

Sir, if you persist in denying to Mississippi that 
right to which she is entitled in common with every 
other State, you inflict upon her a wound which no 
medicine can heal. If you are determined to impose 
upon her a representation not of her choice, and 
against her will, go on, and complete the work of deg- 
radation; send her a proconsul for a governor, and 
make task-masters to rule over her. Let her no long- 
er sit with you, a young and fair member of this 
proud sisterhood; but strip her of the robes of her 
equality, and make of her a handmaid and a servant. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 29 

Sir, you may think it an easy and trifling jnatter to 
deprive Mississippi of her elective franchise; for she 
is young, and may not, perchance, have the power to 
resist; but I am much mistaken in the character of her 
chivalrous citizens if you do not find that she not 
only understands her rights, but has both the will 
and power to vindicate them. You may yet find to 
your sorrow that you have grasped a scorpion when 
you thought you were only crushing a worm. This 
House would as soon put its head into a lion's mouth 
as take with the older and more powerful States the 
course which is threatened. And how happens it that 
Representatives who have always been the readiest 
in the assertion of their own rights should now be 
most zealous in trampling upon the rights of Missis- 
sippi? What has she done that she should be select- 
ed as a victim ? No State is or has ever been more 
ardently attached to the Union ; and if she is placed 
beyond its pale, it will be your fault, and not her own. 
Sir, if you consummate this usurpation, you degrade 
the State of Mississippi; and if she submits, never 
again can she wear the lofty look of conscious inde- 
pendence. Burning shame will set its seal upon her 
brow; and when her proud sons travel in other lands 
they will quail at the history of her dishonor as it 
falls from the sneering lips of the stranger. Sir, 
place her not in that terrible and trying position in 
which her love for this glorious Union will be found 
at war with her own honor and the paramount obli- 
gation which binds her to transmit to the next gener- 
ation, untarnished and undiminished, her portion of 
that rich legacy of the Revolution, which was bought 
with blood, and which should never be parted with 
for a price less than what it cost. Is there a State in 



30 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

this Union that would part with it, that would submit 
to have her Representatives chosen by this House and 
forced upon her against her will? Come! what says 
the Bay State — time-honored Massachusetts? From 
the cradle in which young liberty was rocked, even 
from old Faneuil Hall, comes forth her ready answer, 
and before it dies away again it is repeated from 
Bunker Hill: " It was for this very right of represen- 
tation our fathers fought the battles of the Revolu- 
tion, and ere we will surrender this dear-bought right 
those battles shall again become dread realities." 
Would Kentucky submit? Ask her, Mr. Speaker, 
and her mammoth cavern will find a voice to thunder 
in your ear her stern response: "No; sooner than 
submit to such an outrage, our soil shall be rebap- 
tized with a new claim to the proud but melancholy 
title of the dark and bloody ground" And what says 
Virginia with her high device, her sic semper tyrannis, 
the loftiest motto that ever blazed upon a warrior's 
shield or a nation's arms? What says the mother of 
States and State's rights doctrines, she who has placed 
instruction over representation? what says she to the 
proposition that this House can make Representatives, 
and force them upon a State in violation of its choice 
and will? And where is South Carolina, the Harry 
Percy of the Union? On which side of this great 
controversy does she couch her lance and draw her 
blade? I trust upon the side of her sister State; upon 
the side too of the Constitutions of all the States; and 
let her lend the strength of her good right arm when 
she strikes in so righteous a quarrel. Upon all the 
States I would solemnly call, for that justice for an- 
other which they would expect for themselves. Let 
this cup pass from Mississippi. Compel her not to 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 31 

drink its bitter ingredients, lest some day even-hand- 
ed justice should "commend the poisoned chalice " to 
your own lips. Rescind that resolution that presses 
like a foul incubus upon the Constitution. You sit 
here, twenty-five sovereign States, in judgment upon 
the most sacred right of a sovereign State, that which 
is to a State what chastity is to a woman or honor to 
a man. Should you decide against her, you tear from 
her brow the richest jewel that sparkles there, and 
forever bow her head in shame and dishonor. But 
if your determination is taken, if the bJow must fall, 
if the violated Constitution must bleed, I have but 
one request on her behalf to make. When you de- 
cide that she cannot choose her own representation 
at that self-same moment blot from the star-spangled 
banner of this Union the bright star that glistens to 
the name of Mississippi; but leave the stripe behind, 
fit emblem of her degradation. 



The Impressment of American Seamen. — No. 2.— 
Richard Rush. 

Animated by all the motives which demand and 
justify this contest, let us advance to it with resolute 
and high-beating hearts, supported by the devotion 
to our beloved country which wishes for her tri- 
umphs cannot fail to kindle. Dear to us is this be- 
loved country for all the true blessings that flourish 
within her bosom; the country of our fathers, the 
country of our children, the scene of our dearest 
affections, whose rights and liberties have been conse- 
crated by the blood whose current runs fresh in our 
own veins. Who shall touch such a country, and not 
fire the patriotism and unsheathe the sword of every 



32 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

loyal man. No, Americans, while you reserve your 
independent privilege of rendering your suffrages as 
you please, let our proud foe be undeceived. Let 
her, let the whole world learn now and forever that the 
voice of our nation, whenever legitimately expressed, 
is holy, is imperious; that it is a summons of duty to 
every citizen; that when we strike at a foreign foe 
the sacred bond of country becomes the pledge of 
concentrated effort; that in such a cause and at such 
a crisis we feel but one heart and strike with our 
whole strength. We are the only nation in the world 
where the people and the government stand in all 
things identified; where every blow at the general 
safety becomes the personal safety of each individ- 
ual. Happy people! happy government! will you 
give up? will you not defend such blessings? We are 
the only republic since the days of the ancients that 
has taken up arms against a foreign foe in defense of 
its rights and its liberties. Animated and warmed by 
the fire of ancient freedom, may we not expect to see 
the valor of Thermopylae and Marathon again dis- 
played? The Congress of eighteen hundred and 
twelve, here within these august walls, have proclaimed 
to the world that other feelings than those of servility, 
avarice, or fear pervade the American bosom; that 
in the hope and purity of youth we are not debased 
by the passions of a corrupt old age; that, while we 
are peaceful, we know the value of national rights and 
national justice, and with the spirit due to the last- 
ing prosperity of our republic, design to repel au- 
thenticated outrages. That we will and dare act as 
becomes a free, an enlightened, and a brave people. 
Illustrious Congress! worthy to have your names re- 
corded with the illustrious fathers of our revolution. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 33 

For what grievances were those that led to make this 
great nation, that have not been equaled, that have 
not been surpassed by those which move you to your 
deed, and what noble hazards did they encounter 
which you ought not to brave? 

If we are not fully prepared for war, let the sublime 
spectacle be soon exhibited, that a free and valiant 
nation, in a just cause, is always a powerful nation. 
The Congress of '76 declared independence, and 
hurled defiance at the same insatiate foe six and thirty 
years ago with an army of seventeen thousand sol- 
diers j-ust landed on our shores. And shall we now 
hesitate, shall we bow our necks in submission, and 
shall we make an ignominious surrender of our birth- 
right under the plea that we are not prepared to defend 
it? No, Americans; yours has been a pacific republic, 
but you will, as before, soon command battalions and 
discipline and courage. If a general of old could stamp 
on the earth and raise up armies, shall a whole nation 
of freemen not know where to find them ? Could the 
departed heroes of the Revolution rise from their 
sleep and behold us hanging contentedly over hoards 
of money, or casting up British invoices, while so long 
a list of wrongs call for retribution, what would they 
say? Would they not hasten back to their tombs, 
now more welcome than ever, since they would hide 
from their view the base conduct of those sons for 
whom they so gallantly fought and so gallantly died? 
Sacred in our celebration be this day to the end of 
time. Revered be the memories of the statesmen and 
the orators whose wisdom led to independence, and 
of the gallant soldiers who sealed it with their blood! 
May the fires of their genius and courage animate 
and sustain us in our conduct and bring it to a like 
3 



34 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

glorious result! May there be a willing, a joyous im- 
molation of all selfish passions on the altar of our 
country! May victory soon flash across our skies and 
peace come to dwell with us forever! May we have 
in our pacific glories a roused intellect and a spirit of 
improvement in whatever may gild the American 
name! May common perils and common triumphs 
bind us all more closely together! May the era fur- 
nish names to our annals, 

On whom a later time, a kindling eye shall turn! 

Revered be the dust of those who fall, and sweet be 
their memories! Their country vindicated, their duty 
done, then an honorable renown, the regrets of a na- 
tion, the eulogies of friendship, the slow and moving 
dirges of the camp, and the tears of beauty — all, all 
shall sanctify their doom! Honored be those who 
outlive the strife of arms; our rights established, 
justice secured, a haughty foe taught to respect the 
freemen she had abused and plundered, to survive to 
such recollections, to such a consciousness — is there, 
can there be a nobler reward? 



Gen. Washington to His Troops before the Bat- 
tle op Long Island. 
The time is now near at hand which must probably 
determine whether Americans are to be freemen or 
slaves; whether they are to have "any property they 
can call their own; whether their houses and farms 
are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves 
consigned to a state of wretchedness, from which 
no human efforts will deliver them. The fate 
of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 35 

the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and 
unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a 
brave resistance or the most abject submission. We 
have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die. Our 
own, our country's honor calls on us for a vigorous 
and manly exertion; and if we now shamefully fail, 
we shall become infamous in the eyes of the whole 
world. Then let us rely on the goodness of our 
cause and on the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose 
hands victory is, to animate us and encourage us to 
great and noble actions. The eyes of all our country- 
men are now upon us, and we shall have their bless- 
ings and their praise if happily we are the instru- 
ments of saving them from the tyranny meditated 
against them. Let us, therefore, animate and encour- 
age each other, and show the whole world that a free- 
man contending for liberty on his own ground is 
superior to any slavish mercenary on earth. 

Liberty, property, life, and honor are all at stake. 
Upon our courage and conduct rest the hopes of our 
bleeding and insulted country; our wives, children, 
and parents expect safety from us only, and they 
have every reason to believe Heaven will crown with 
success so just a cause. 

Character of Lafayette.— S. S. Prentiss. 
In the bosom of Lafayette there had been cher- 
ished from his infancy a passion more potent than 
all others, and that passion was the love of liberty. 
A spark from the very altar of freedom had fallen 
upon his heart, and he watched and cherished it with 
more than vestal vigilance. This passionate love of 
liberty, this fire that was thenceforth to burn un- 
quenched and undimmed, impelled him to break 



30 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

asunder the ties of pleasure and affection. He had 
heard that a gallant people had raised the standard 
against oppression, and he hastened to join them. 
It was to him the crusade of liberty, and like a Knight 
of the Holy Cross he enlisted in the ranks of those 
who had sworn to rescue its altars from the grasp of 
the tyrant. 

From the moment of joining our ranks he became 
the pride and the boast of the whole army. He won 
the affections of the iron-souled warriors of New 
England, and was received with open arms by the 
warm-hearted and chivalrous sons of the South. 
Throughout the Revolution he followed its fortunes 
with unchanged fidelity and undeviating devotion; 
and when he returned to his native land the voices of 
millions joined to invoke the blessings of heaven 
upon his head. 

Throughout the troublous times of the French 
Revolution, when the people became drunk and fren- 
zied with draughts of liberty, he ever remained at 
his post by the Constitution and laws. When the 
whole foundations of society had been broken up, 
and the wild current of licentiousness and crime had 
swept him an exile to a foreign land, and even when 
he lay in the dungeon of Olmutz, the flame of liberty 
burned as brightly in his breast as ever it did when 
fanned by the free breezes of the mountains. 

When after five long years he returned to France 
the Revolution had subsided, and the star of the 
child of destiny was now lord of the ascendant. But 
there could be no sympathy between the selfish and 
ambitious Napoleon and Lafayette, the patriot and 
philanthropist. They could no more mingle than the 
pure light of heaven and the unholy fires of perdition. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. • 37 

And here let us pause to compare these two won- 
derful men, belonging to the same age and to the 
same nation — Napoleon and Lafayette. Napoleon, 
the child of destiny, the thunderbolt of war, the dis- 
penser of thrones and kingdoms, he who scaled the 
Alps, and reclined beneath the Pyramids, whose word 
was fate, and whose wish was law; Lafayette, the 
volunteer of freedom, the advocate of human rights, 
the defender of civil liberty, the patriot, the philan- 
thropist, the beloved of the good and the free. Na- 
poleon, the vanquished warrior, ignobly flying from 
the field of Waterloo, the wild beast of Europe 
hunted down by the banded and affrighted nations, 
and caged far away upon an ocean-girdled rock; 
Lafayette, a watch-word by which men are excited 
to deeds of worth and noble daring, whose home has 
become the Mecca of freedom toward which the pil- 
grims of liberty turn their eyes from every quarter of 
the globe. Napoleon was the red and fiery comet, 
shooting wildly through the realms of space, and 
scattering terror and pestilence among the nations; 
Lafayette was the pure and brilliant planet beneath 
whose grateful beams the mariner directs his bark 
and the shepherd tends his Hocks. Napoleon died, 
and a few old warriors, the scattered relics of Maren- 
go and Austerlitz, bewailed their chief; Lafayette 
is dead, and the tears of the civilized w T orld attest how 
deep is the mourning for his loss. 



Eulogy on Lafayette. — S. S. Prentiss. 
In 1824, on Sunday, a single ship furled her snowy 
sails in the harbor of New York. Scarcely had her 
prow touched the shore when a murmur was heard 



38 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

among the multitude, which gradually deepened into 
a mighty shout; and that shout was a shout of 
joy. Again and again were the heavens rent 
with the inspiring sound. Nor did it cease; for 
the loud strain was carried from city to city, and from 
State to State, till not a tongue was silent throughout 
the wide republic, from the lisping infant to the 
tremulous old man. All were united in one wild 
'shout of gratulation. The voices of more than ten mill- 
ions of people gushed up toward the sky, and broke 
the stillness of its silent depths. But one note and 
but one tone went to form this acclamation. Up in 
those pure regions clearly and sweetly did it sound: 
"Honor to Lafayette!" "Welcome to the nation's 
guest! " It was Lafayette, the war-worn veteran, 
whose arrival upon our shores had caused this wide- 
spread, this universal joy. He came among us to be- 
hold the independence and the freedom which his 
young arm had so well assisted in achieving; and 
never before did eye behold or heart of man conceive 
such homage paid to virtue. 

His whole stay among us was a continued tri- 
umph. Every day's march was an ovation. The 
United States became for months one great festive 
hall. People forgot the usual occupations of life, 
and crowded to behold the benefactor of mankind. 
The iron-hearted, gray-haired veterans of the Ee volu- 
tion thronged around him to touch his hand, to be- 
hold his face, and to call down Heaven's benison upon 
their old companion in arms. Lisping infancy and 
garrulous age, beauty, talents, wealth, and power— all 
for awhile forsook their usual pursuits, and united 
to pay a willing tribute of gratitude and welcome to 
the nation's guest. The name of Lafayette was 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 39 

upon every lip, and wherever was his name, there 
too was an invocation of blessings on his head. 
What were the triumphs of the classic ages compared 
with this unbought love and homage of a mighty 
people? Take them in Rome's best days — when the 
invincible generals of the eternal city returned from 
their foreign conquests, with captive kings bound to 
their chariot-wheels and spoils of nations in their 
train, followed by their stern and bearded warriors, 
and surrounded by the interminable multitudes of 
the seven-hilled city, shouting a fierce welcome home 
— what was such a triumph to the universal joy at 
the approach of Lafayette? Not a single city, but 
a whole nation rising as one man and greeting him 
with an affectionate embrace! One single day of 
such spontaneous homage were worth whole years of 
courtly adulation; one hour might well reward a 
man for a whole life of danger and toil. Then, too, 
the joy with which he must have viewed the prosper- 
ity of the people for whom he had so heroically strug- 
gled! To behold the nation which he had left a 
child now grown up in the full proportions of lusty 
manhood! To see the tender sapling which he had 
left with hardly shade enough to cover its own roots, 
now grown into the sturdy oak beneath whose 
grateful shade the oppressed of all nations find shel- 
ter andTprotection ! 

The Confedekate Dead .*— Gen. Wm. B. Bate. 

Under the broad canopy of heaven, by the side of 
your great river, in the silent and solemn presence of 
your warrior dead, in response to the call of your no- 
ble women, have I come to pay a humble bat heart- 
* Delivered at Memphis. 



40 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

felt tribute to the heroic virtues of those whose sacred 
dust is entombed beneath these green sods. Depart- 
ed spirits of the "Lost Cause," a comrade in pil- 
grim's garb, with uplifted palm, offers to you the silent 
prayers of the thousands of hearts surrounding him. 
Let us to-day close up the squares of affection 
around the graves of our heroes as we drop the pas- 
sion flower upon their patriot tombs and brighten it 
with tears of gratitude ; let us brush from our sandals 
the white dust of travel gathered along the highways 
of every-day life, for we are about the sacred altar 
where sleep our loved and lost; and as we approach 
its railing let us bow with reverence over the chancel 
wherein are garnered many of the precious jewels that 
adorned our " Lost Cause." We are here to-day, with 
the cypress and the laurel, where the silent dust in- 
vokes the voice of love and prayer. 

Where sweetest flower sheds perfume, 
And quiet breeze gives softest sigh, 

Where love and gratitude commune, 
Invoking blessings from on high. 

This day of the annual offering of Tennessee; this 
throng of her gallant sons who, inspired by patriotic 
zeal and love for our fallen heroes, have made their 
pilgrimage to this cherished Mecca; these fair daugh- 
ters of her household who have come hither with 
their sw 7 eet offerings and arranged them in tasteful 
beauty above the little mounds which greenly swell 
above our buried chivalry — all tell us that though her 
sovereignty may be ephemeral, her glory is immortal, 
and that she can still point with pride and affection 
to the deeds of her dead heroes, and through them 
claim prestige on the scroll of valor. There is a 
tenderer touch of sympathy, a sweeter fragrance, and 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 41 

a brighter hue of beauty thrown around the memory 
of our dear departed by these simple offerings than 
wealth or power ever gave to the loved and lost. 
There is more of hope of the " life eternal " in spread- 
ing upon the unostentatious graves of our soldiers 
these simple offerings of nature — these fresh-blown 
flowers, laid bare for their emblems to be read from 
mansions in the skies — than is found in the cen- 
ser-bowl of the king or around the gilded altars of 
the proud and great. There is more of tender his- 
tory entwined in these flower- wreaths and made to 
glow by their unblushing beauty upon her truthful 
pages than was ever wrought by the chisel of Prax- 
iteles. 

O it is the heart-throbs which build the strongest 
and most touching monument, and write the truest 
and sweetest history of our patriot dead! The one 
stands in its granite strength and classic symmetry, 
suggestive of culture and challenging admiration; 
the other is the simple tribute of the heart, furnished 
by the hand of nature from her own genial bosom, 
and strewn over the consecrated spot by the minister- 
ing angels of beauty and love. The marble, with its 
resistive power, may stand in the sunshine and in the 
storm; but it is cold and passionless, it utters no 
prayers of devotion, it sheds no tears of sorrow, it 
sings no songs of love. 

The Same Continued. 

When the meed of victory is granted to the con- 
queror who, by superior numbers, greater resources, 
the intervention of foreign courage, and the black 
cohorts of the line, has overcome the weaker in the 
contest, does it settle the question of right or wrong? 



42 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

After a deadly conflict extending through, four years, 
when soldier stood eye to eye and hilt to hilt — a con- 
flict in which every step was a battle-field, and every 
battle-field a grave-yard; where on one point the 
stars and stripes waved in triumph, at another the 
stars and bars with their cross of St. Andrew an- 
swered the shout of victory; when the battle-ax of 
the Crusader was met by the magic blade of the 
Saracen; and when the feebler party, worn and weary, 
stood in the dark shadow of his native hills by the 
tide that ran blushing with the best blood of the ill- 
starred South — what must be our admiration for 
the gallant Confederate hero? And when the last 
arrow from his quiver was spent, the last shot from 
his locker gone, grasping with one mangled hand his 
broken blade, as he held up with the other his bat- 
tered shield, with Manassas and Chancellorsville and 
Shiloh and Chickamauga imprinted on it, are we to be 
told that, notwithstanding such courage and devo- 
tion, simply for the want of success, he is a traitor 
and his cause was treason? Away with such philos- 
ophy! Yalor is a virtue which has been awarded a 
meed of praise in all ages, and the death of these gal- 
lant spirits effaceth all demerits, and is the highest 
encomium upon their soldier qualities. But they 
have fallen, and as Confederate soldiers now find re- 
pose in these sacred precincts. 

If by some mystic means the spirit land could 
commune with the natural world, and let the spirit- 
ual eye of the dead Confederate soldier look down 
upon this scene, and see that the same soft hands 
that tied the ribbon and pinned the rosette in days 
of hope and enthusiasm are here to-day to place the 
wreath of honor around the little white board at the 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 43 

head of his grave, and plant the flower-cross above 
the heart so still and cold, it would inspire a shout of 
triumph and a song of praise in an angel choir 
known to blessed immortality. 

How grateful to the soul to know that the same eye 
which gave him the glance of love in parting, wheth- 
er of the Scandinavian blue, drooping in its modest 
tenderness with fear for his fate, or flashing as the 
dark orb of the Frank when it burns with indignation 
at his wrongs, is here to-day to reunite with him in 
his spirit and weep over his sacred dust! Can the 
devoted sister believe that the brother for whom she 
stitched the jacket of gray now fills an unworthy 
grave? Can the faithful brother who was nursed 
on the same maternal lap, sported on the same 
green, swam together in the same stream, be per- 
suaded that the cause in which that brother fell was 
wrong? Can the father forget his admonition to his 
son when he sent him forth in all his pride and 
strength to battle for his people ? Can the old moth- 
er — God bless the sweetest name lisped by Saxon 
tongue! — can she abate her pride in the history of 
her noble boy, who trod with glorious manhood the 
perilous path and dared to do his duty even at the 
cannon's mouth — will this dear old mother admit the 
philosophy of the victor, and consent that her boy fills 
a traitor's grave? Ah no! she loves him too well to 
believe that. His picture on the wall of the old home- 
stead — all in that suit of gray as proudly he stepped 
into the line of his duty— is her household penates. 
The vacant place at the table and the chair that sits 
by it are objects of affection and care. 

And now in the face of such patriotism to inspire, 
such heroism to praise, such love to sanctify, is there 



44 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

one to call that soldier a traitor who sleeps beneath 
yon flower-cross? 

Continuation of the Same. 

Besides the gallant spirits that sleep in these silent 
dells we have other gems in the urn of history of 
which we have a right to be proud. If Scotland's 
piaided soldier finds music in his bagpipe, if the son 
of Tell winds his mellow horn in patriotic pride, if the 
Frenchman goes wild over his Marseillais, if " Hail 
Columbia " excites American patriotism, may we not 
glory in the soft and melancholy cadence of " Mary- 
land, My Maryland," and worship the genius that 
inspired the "Land of Dixie?" May we not look 
back, too, with purest emotions, and remember with 
sweetest and saddest affections the cross of St. An- 
drew, with its stars and bars, as it waved in triumph 
over a hundred battle-fields, and was baptized in the 
best blood of the land ere it became the " Conquered 
Banner?" 

My comrades, we owe it to the heroic dead who 
fell under that banner and in that cause to show to 
the world our appreciation of their valor and patriot- 
ism by these votive offerings from the hand of our 
fair women, great in their weakness, noble in their 
charity, beautiful in their patience, and whose devo- 
tion at the cross and sepulcher was but an earnest of 
their high and holy mission. Then let them 

Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed, 

A crown for the brow of the early dead, 

For this through its leaves hath the white rose burst, 

For this in the woods was the violet nursed ; 

Though they smile in vain for what once was ours, 

They are love's last gift; bring ye flowers, pale flowers! 

It now becomes you, my comrades, to maintain as 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 45 

citizens the same high character you won as soldiers. 
Then be equal to the emergency, for, to a great ex- 
tent, the weight of the present and the hope of the 
future of this country are upon you and our younger 
brethren who were unable to take part in the fight. 
Though prostrate in fortune, be not discouraged; but 
rise like the antique wrestler, the greater for your 
fall. Remember that Tennessee remains and is still 
in the bloom of her youth and beauty. What though 
her household gods have been broken by the mailed 
hand of war, does not the ivy still cling to her shat- 
tered columns and the laurel entwine with the cypress 
along the bowers of her Appian ways? Do not the 
white rose and the red rose now spring together upon 
the late battle-plains where met York and Lancaster? 

Let us not encourage discord and strife, nor use- 
lessly grieve over the past when we have done but 
our duty. Let us not be appalled and paralyzed by 
misfortune, for it is the test of true manhood, the 
crucible that tries the metal. Does not the frozen, 
cheerless winter make the spring more balmy and 
the summer more fruitful? 

Then let us rather look to the overhanging cloud 
and see if it hath not a silver lining, the while re- 
membering that the Chaldean shepherd did not cast 
his wistful gaze in vain through weeks and years to 
the quiet skies in the East, and that the Star of 
Bethlehem did rise and man was redeemed. 

To me, Tennessee, amid all her misfortunes, has a 
charm that knows no broken spell, a glory yet un- 
dimmed. A child of her bosom, I love her smiling 
plains exuberant with their summer burdens, and 
her smiling mountains grim in their grandeur 
and rich in their emboweled treasures. I love her 



46 THE PEARL SPEAKFR. 

vast forests beautiful in their leafy bowers and viny 
archways. I love her fountains as they leap and 
laugh among the cleft rocks of her beetling crags and 
gurgle in her valleys and on to an ocean of unrest. 

After giving tears for the past let us turn and give 
smiles for the future, and through our smiles and 
tears we will look upon the rainbow of promise as it 
lights up the cloud that bears the thunder away in 
its bosom. 

The "290" (Alabama).— Gen. Wm. B. Bate. 

Sleep, my comrades, partners of our toil and suf- 
fering, under these Paphian skies, in the lap of this 
beautiful landscape, where the "witch-elms" darken 
the green turf with their evening shadows. Sleep 
where love and beauty meet to plant the cross and 
scatter forget-me-nots. 

Sleep, just outside the city's busy hum, where the 
church-bells at the decline of day send their softened 
tones of Ave Maria. Sleep, here on the banks of the 
monarch stream along whose restless wave flowed 
the tide of Belmont, Donelson, Shiloh, and Chicka- 
mauga. 

If these are some of our jewels which glisten by 
the side of those of our sister States in the history of 
war, have we not also gems that rest in the dark 
caves of the ocean? Although ours was eminently a 
land strife, yet we were not without a spirit moving 
upon the face of the great deep. "While the Merri- 
mac as a sentinel swung with her destructive prow 
and iron sides around the mouth of the James, guard- 
ing our citadel, the Sumter tripped her anchor, and 
leaving the orange and the myrtle, amid the prayers 
of our people, gave herself upon the Gulf Stream to 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 47 

the "God of storms, the lightning, and the gale," 
She did signal service to our cause, until the edict of 
fate was pronounced against her in the waters of the 
Mediterranean, where she went into stranger hands, 
and now off the coast of Britain she "lies darkling 
amid the Pearl Islands." Her devoted commander, 
Admiral Semmes, with her gallant tars, stepped upon 
the decks of the "290," and baptized her under the 
balmy breezes of the Azores as "Alabama." 

With his foot upon her decks she glided o'er the 
main with the swoop of a devouring sea-gull. For 
more than two years she "walked the waters like a 
thing of life." Her path upon the trackless deep, 
like that of the comet in his course, glistened in glo- 
ry. The steam cloud from her stacks cast its flitting 
shadows over every sea, and the white wings of this 
bird of the ocean, with the cross of St. Andrew in its 
beak, were kissed by every breeze. 

As she cut her way through a wilderness of waters, 
she sent her signals booming across the bows of every 
adversary who dared "enter the lists;" now leaping 
like a salmon from the topmost wave, she dashed the 
foaming spray from her firm-set sides, until, glisten- 
ing in the sunshine, it softened into the beauties of the 
rainbow. Again, ever and anon, she plunged like the 
sword-fish into the bowels of her enemy, crimsoned 
the waters of the deep, and lined her curling wake 
with trophies of victory richer than " spoils of Tra- 
falgar." Consternation brooded over the deep, and 
the highways of commerce were well-nigh abandoned; 
and at last, when with weary wing she sought a brief 
repose in a harbor of France, the "Kearsage," with 
her metaled sides and superior armament, gave a 
signal for battle. True to the instincts of chivalry, 



48 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

she responded as a knight of old, and fonght her last 
battle in sight of the white cliffs of Albion and the 
lilies of France. All scarred and crippled by the con- 
flict, her decks slippery with the blood of her gallant 
tars, she sunk in crimsoned waters, amid the smoke 
of battle, with the gurgling cry of some strong swim- 
mer in his agony." The roar of artillery was her 
only dirge, and the white caps of the fretful British 
Channel her eternal winding-sheet. 

Rest, weary pilgrim, from thy labors of glory, 
Eest where the coral around thee doth glisten, 

Rest with thy decks all shattered and gory, 
Thy masts and thy spars in splinters all riven. 

The bodies of these, as well as thousands more 
who fell upon the land, have not been, and cannot be 
gathered into our cemeteries by kindred or charity. 
We will let them sleep, too sacred to be removed, far 
away on their fields of glory. 



Washington.*— Geokge William Curtiss. 

This is a day of proud and tender memories. 
With malice toward none, with charity for all, it 
commemorates the triumph of American patriotism, 
and the assured integrity of the American Union. 

What day in the year could be more fitting than 
the day consecrated by such memories, on which to 
lay the corner-stone of a monument which shall re- 
call alike the beginning of the Union and the glory 
of its greatest citizen? Never before could this duty 
be performed with greater joy and gratitude, because 
now the national Union, the great result of the Kev- 

*Delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the Washington 
Arch. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 49 

olution and of the devotion of Washington, has been 
tried by fire, and the dross burned away. Whether 
the flowers fall to-day upon the graves of the blue or 
the gray, they fall on the dust of Americans. As 
nothing but American valor could have hoped suc- 
cessfully to assail the Union, so nothing but Amer- 
ican valor could have successfully maintained it. 
Whatever colors we may have worn in the past, to-day 
the sun shines on a nation which is all true blue. 

We always gladly concede that Washington was 
good, but we are not always sure that he was great. 
But a man's greatness is measured by his service to 
mankind. If without ambition and without a crime, 
righteously to lead a people to independence through 
a righteous war, then without precedent, and amid 
vast and incalculable hostile forces to organize their 
government and establish in every department the 
fundamental principles of the policy which has re- 
sulted in marvelous national power and prosperity, 
and untold service to liberty throughout the world; 
and to do all this without suspicion or reproach, 
with perfect dignity and sublime repose, if this 
be greatness, do you find it more in Alexander or 
Pericles, Csesar or Alfred, in Charlemagne or Napo- 
leon, or in George Washington? As this majestic 
arch will stand here through the long succession of 
years in the all-revealing light of day, visible at 
every point, and at every point exquisitely rounded 
and complete, so in the searching light of history 
stands Washington, strong, simple, symmetrical, su- 
preme, beloved by a filial nation, revered by a grate- 
ful world. 

To the memory of such a character and of such 
events we dedicate this monument. But, fellow-citi- 
4 



50 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

zens, to what does this monument dedicate us? 
Arching this thronged highway of the city, bending 
in silent benediction over the ceaseless flood of mul- 
titudinous life which pours beneath, what will it say 
to the endless procession of Washington's fellow- 
countrymen? What is the voice which by erecting 
this monument we make our own ? In his eulogy on 
Washington Governeur Morris said that, as the Con- 
stitutional Convention was about to organize, when 
success seemed hopeless, and despair suggested fatal 
compromise, Washington said: "If to please the 
people we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how 
can we afterward defend our work. Let us raise a 
standard to which the wise and honest can repair — 
the event is in the hands of God." 

There spoke the good genius of America. If any 
words were to be inscribed upon this arch, these 
words of Washington- would be apples of gold in 
pictures of silver. What he said to the convention 
he says to us. It is the voice of the heroic spirit 
which in council and in the field has made and alone 
will preserve our America. It is the voice that will 
speak from this memorial arch to all coming genera- 
tions of Americans. Whatever may betide, whatever 
war, foreign or domestic, may threaten, whatever 
specious sophistry may assail the political conscience 
of the country, or bribery of place, or money corrupt 
its political action, above the roar of the mob, above 
the insidious clamor of the demagogue, the voice of 
Washington will still be the voice of American patri- 
otism and manly honor: "Let us raise a standard 
to which the wise and honest can repair— the event 
is in the hand of God." 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 51 

The Lessons of the Life of Lee. — John W. Daniel. 

Will any man dare to say lie lived in vain, this 
brave and gentle Lee? I would blush to ask the 
'question, save to give the ready answer. A leader of 
armies, he closed his career in complete disaster. 
But the military scientist studies his campaigns, and 
finds in them designs as bold and brilliant and ac- 
tions^ as intense and energetic as ever illustrated the 
art of war. The gallant captain beholds in his bear- 
ing a courage as rare as ever forced a desperate field. 
The private soldier looked up at an image as benig- 
nant and commanding as ever thrilled the heart with 
highest impulse of devotion. 

The men who wrested victory from his little band 
stood wonder-stricken and abashed, when they saw 
how few were those who dared oppose them, and 
generous admiration burst into spontaneous tribute 
to the splendid leader who bore defeat with the quiet 
resignation of a hero. The men who fought under 
him never revered him or loved him more than on 
the day he sheathed his sword. Had he but said the 
word, they would have died for honor. It was be- 
cause he said the word that they resolved to live for 
duty. 

And in this vast throng to-day, and here and there 
the wide world over, is many a one who wore the 
gray who rejoices that he was able to do a man's 
part for his suffering country; that he had the glory 
of being a Confederate; and who feels a just, proud, 
and glowing consciousness in his bosom when he 
says unto himself: "I was a follower of Robert E. 
Lee." 

Was this because he wielded patronage and power? 
No; he could not have appointed a friend to the small- 



52 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

est office. And while lie could bestow no emolument 
upon any of his followers, an intimation of his wish 
amongst his own people carried an influence which 
the autocrat never possessed, and his approval of 
conduct or character was deemed an honor, and was 
an honor, which outvied the stars and crosses and 
titles of kings. 

Did he gain wealth ? No ; it thrust itself upon him, 
but he refused its companionship because his people 
could not have its company. "What he had he gave 
to a weak cause, and home itself he offered upon the 
altar of his country. 

But he has left a great, imperishable legacy to us 
and our heirs forever. The heart of man is his per- 
petual kingdom. There he reigns transcendent, and 
we exclaim: " O king, live forever! " 

Did he possess rank? No; he was not even a citi- 
zen. The country- which gave the right of suffrage 
to the alien ere he could read or understand its laws 
denied to him the privilege of a ballot. He had 
asked amnesty, and had been refused. He had not 
been tried, but he had been convicted. He forgave, 
but he was unforgiven. He died a paroled prisoner 
of war, in the calm of peace, five years after war had 
ended; died the foremost and noblest man in a re- 
public which proclaims itself the "land of the free 
and the home of the brave," himself and his com- 
mander in chief constituting the most conspicuous of 
its political slaves. But as the oak stripped of its 
foliage by the winter blast, then, and then only, 
stands forth in solemn and mighty majesty against 
the wintery sky, so Kobert Lee, stripped of every 
rank that man could give him, towered above the 
earth and those around him in the pure sublimity 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 53 

and strength of that character which we can only fit- 
ly contemplate when we lift our eyes from earth and 
see it dimmed against the heavens. 

Did he save his country from conquest? No; he 
saw his every foreboding of evil verified. He came to 
share the miseries of his people. He shared them, 
drinking every drop of sorrow's cup. His cause was 
lost, and the land for which he fought lives not 
among the nations. But the voice of history echoes 
the poet's song: 

Ah realm of tombs ! but let it bear 

This blazon to the last of times : 
No nation rose so white and fair, 

Or fell so pure from crimes. 



The Lessons of the Life of Lee (Continued). 
There is a rare exotic that blooms once in a centu- 
ry, and then it fills the sight with beauty and the air 
with fragrance. In each of the two centuries of Vir- 
ginia's statehood there has sprung from the loins of 
her heroic race a son whose name and deeds shall 
bloom throughout the ages. Each fought for liber- 
ty and independence, each against a people of his 
own race, each against the forms of established pow- 
er. George Washington won against a kingdom 
whose seat was three thousand miles away, whose 
soldiers had to sail in ships across the deep, and he 
found in the boundless areas of his own land its 
strongest fortifications. August beyond the reach of 
detraction is the glory of his name. 

Robert E. Lee made fiercer and bloodier fight 
against greater odds and at greater sacrifice, and 
lost — against the greatest nation of modern history, 



54 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

armed with steam and electricity and all the appli- 
ances of modern science; a nation which mustered 
its forces at the very thresholdiof his door. But his 
life teaches the grand lesson how manhood can rise 
transcendent over adversity, and is in itself alone 
under God pre-eminent; the grander lesson be- 
cause, as sorrow and misfortune are the common lot, 
he who bears them best is made of sterner stuff, and 
is the noblest and greatest exemplar. 

He lived to see deeply laid the foundation and 
firmly built the pedestal of his great glory, and to 
catch the murmur of those voices which would rear 
high his image and bear his name and fame to re- 
mote ages and distant nations. The brave and true 
of every land paid him tribute. The first soldiers of 
foreign climes saluted him with eulogy, the scholar 
decorated his page with dedication to his name, the 
artist enshrined his form and features in noblest 
work of brush and chisel, the poet hymned the 
heroic pathos of his life in tender and lofty strain. 
Enmity grew into friendship before his noble bear- 
ing, and humanity itself attended him with all human 
sympathy. 

And now he has vanished from us forever. And 
is this all that is left of him — this handful of dust 
beneath the marble stone? No! the ages answer as 
they rise from the gulfs of time, where lay the 
wrecks of kingdoms and estates holding up their 
hands as their only trophies the names of those who 
have wrought for man in the love and fear of God, 
and in love un fearing for their fellow-men. The 
present, bending over his tomb, answers no! The 
future answers no! as the breath of the morning 
fans its radiant brow, and its soul drinks in sweet in- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 55 

spiration from the lovely life of Lee. No! methinks 
the very heavens echo, as melt into their depths the 
words of reverent love that voice the hearts of men to 
the tingling stars. 

Bequiescat.— John W. Daniel. 
Come we then to-day in loyal love to sanctify our 
memories, to purify our hopes, to make strong all 
good intent by communion with the spirit of one 
who being dead, yet speaketh. Come, child, in thy 
spotless innocence; come, woman, in thy purity; 
come, youth, in thy prime; come, manhood, in thy 
strength; come, age, in thy ripe wisdom; come, citi- 
zen, come, soldier, let us strew the roses and lilies of 
June around his tomb, for he, like them, exhaled in 
his life nature's beneficence, and the grave has con- 
secrated that life and given it to us all; let us 
crown his tomb with the oak, the emblem of his 
strength; and with the laurel, the emblem of his 
glory; and let these guns, whose voices he knew of 
old, awake the echoes of the mountains, that nature 
herself may join in the solemn requiem. 

Come, for here he rests, and 

On this green bank by this fair stream 

We set to-day a native stone, 
That memory may his deeds redeem 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Come, for here the genius of loftiest poesy in the 
artist's dream and through the sculptor's touch, has 
restored his form and features. A valentine has 
lifted the marble veil and disclosed him to us as we 
would like to look upon him, lying, the flower of 
knighthood, in "joyous gard." His sword beside 
him is sheathed forever. But honor's seal is on his 



56 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

brow, and valor's star is on his breast, and the "peace 
that passeth all understanding " descendeth upon him. 
Here, not in the hour of his greatest triumph of 
earth, as when mid the battle roar, shouting bat- 
talions followed his trenchant sword, and bleeding 
veterans forgot their wounds to leap between him and 
his enemies — but here is victory, supreme over earth 
itself, and over death, its conqueror, he rests, his war- 
fare done. 

And as we seem to gaze once more on him we 
loved and hailed as chief, in his sweet, dreamless 
sleep the tranquil face is clothed with heaven's light, 
and the mute lips seem eloquent with the message 
that in life he spoke: " There is a true glory and a 
true honor: the glory of duty done, the honor of the 
integrity of principles." 



True Heroism. — John W. Daniel. 

As little things make up the sum of life, so 
they reveal the inward nature of men and furnish 
keys to history. It is in the office, in the field, by 
the fireside, that men show what stuff they are made 
of, not less than in those eventful actions which write 
themselves in lightnings across the skies and mark 
the rise and fall of nations. Nay, more— the highest 
attributes of human nature are not disclosed in ac- 
tion, but in self-restraint and in passionless repose. 

It is harder to lie down and take the fire of bat- 
teries without returning it than to rise and charge 
to the cannon's mouth. It is harder to give the soft 
answer that turneth away wrath than to retort a 
word with a blow. De Long in the frozen Arctic 
wastes, dying alone inch by inch of cold and starva- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 57 

tion, yet daily writing lines for the benefit of others, 
deserves as well — nay, more — the proud title of the 
" bravest of the brave." 

Among the quiet, nameless workers of the world — 
in the stubble-field and by the forge, bending over a 
sick child's bed or smoothing an outcast's pillow — is 
many a hero and heroine truer, nobler than those over 
whose brows hang plumes and laurels. 

In action there is the stimulus of excited physical 
faculties and of the moving passions, but in the com- 
posure of the calm mind that quietly devotes itself to 
hard life-work, putting aside temptations, contem- 
plating and rising superior to all surroundings of ad- 
versity, danger, and death, man is revealed in his 
highest manifestation. Then, and then alone, he 
seems to have redeemed his fallen state, and to be 
recreated in God's image. The crowning expression 
of all true heroism is unselfishness, is sacrifice. The 
world is suspicious of vaunted heroes. But when 
the true hero has come, and we know that he is here, 
in verity, ah! how the hearts of men leap forth to 
greet him, how worshipfully we welcome God's no- 
blest work— the strong, honest, fearless, upright 
man. 

In Robert Lee was such a hero vouchsafed to us 
and to mankind, and whether we behold him declin- 
ing the command of the Federal army to fight the 
battles and share the miseries of his own people, 
proclaiming on the heights in front of Gettysburg 
that the fault of the disaster was his own, walking 
under the yoke of conquest without a murmur of 
complaint — he is ever the same meek, grand, self-sac- 
rificing spirit. 

Here in these quiet walks, far removed from war 



58 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

or battle's sound, as when the storm o'erpassed, the 
mountain seems a pinnacle of light, the landscape 
beams with fresher and tenderer beauties, and the 
purple, golden clouds float above us in the azure 
depths like the islands of the blessed; so came into 
view the towering grandeur, the massive splendor, 
and the loving-kindness of the character of Gen. 
Lee, and the very sorrows that overhung his life 
seemed luminous with celestial hues. 



The Arch Fiend.— Dr. Talmage. 

Out of the modern still flows a beverage in which 
a madness and a fury, a fire and a gloom, a suicide 
and a retribution are mixed and melted. It is a bev- 
erage that sets its victims to struggling with menag- 
eries of hissing reptiles and serpents, surrounds them 
with jungles of howling tigers, and through their 
bleared and distorted vision they behold perditions 
of blaspheming demons. 

Yes, an arch fiend has landed in our world, and has 
built an invisible caldron of temptation. He has 
made it stanch and strong, and has filled it for all 
nations and all ages. He has squeezed into it the 
juice of the forbidden fruit of paradise. He has put 
into it a distillation from all the orchards and har- 
vest-fields of the hemispheres. He has added copper- 
as and logwood, tobacco and nightshade, sulphuric 
acid and murder, indigo, potash, poverty, and death. 
And then, that this mixture of hell may not be too 
dry, he pours into it the tears of centuries of orphan- 
age and widowhood and the blood of thousands of as- 
sassinations. He stirs this frightful caldron with a 
shovel he has brought from the lower world. And 



THE PEARL SPEAKER 59 

as he stirs, this awful liquefaction begins to heave 
and sputter and boil and hiss and smoke; and men 
and women gather around this mammoth caldron 
with cups and kegs, with bottles and demijohns, and 
all nations are struggling to get their share. 

And the arch fiend laughs as he cries: "Ha! ha! 
what a champion fiend am I! Who does more for 
coffins and grave-yards, for shipwrecks and prisons, 
for hospitals and asylums? who does more for popu- 
lating the lower world? When this caldron is emp- 
ty I will fill it again, and stir it again, until the 
smoke of it shall join the smoke that ascendeth from 
torment forever. 

"Ha! ha! I drove fifty ships on the banks of 
Newfoundland. I have slain five times as many Sen- 
ators as will assemble this winter in the capital of 
the nation, and five times as many lords as will as- 
semble in the House of Peers. My festal cup is a 
bleached human skull, and all the upholstery of my 
palace is such a rich crimson because it was dipped 
in human gore. The mosaics of my floors are the 
bones of children whose lives have been dashed out 
by drunken parents. My favorite music, sweeter 
than Te Deum or triumphal march, is the cry of 
daughters turned on the street at night by drunken 
fathers. Ah! sweet as the strains of iEolian harp is 
the seven hundred voiced shriek of a sunken steamer 
because the captain was not himself when he put the 
ship on the wrong course. Ha! ha! let me thrust 
the shovel again into the caldron, and stir it again, 
and make it smoke again! A champion fiend am I! 
I have kindled more fires, wrung out more agonies, 
stretched out more midnight shadows, lifted more 
Golgothas, rolled more Juggernauts, and damned 



60 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

more souls than all the brotherhood of diabol- 
ism." 

Yes, my friends, the ghastliest evil of America to- 
day is drunkenness. The immediate cause of it is 
the rum traffic. What American Christian can stand 
unmoved at the recital that the drink bill of the 
American people exceeds its bread and meat con- 
sumption by one hundred million dollars? What 
Christian, did I say? Ah! there are hundreds of 
thousands of them. What though there is a saloon 
for every church in this broad land. If the fifteen 
millions of Christians should move in solid phalanx 
against the monster of curses, alcohol, can any sane 
man but believe that the rum traffic would disappear 
from the face of the earth forever? 



The New South.— No. 2. — Henry W. Grady. 
The light of a grander day is falling fair on the 
face of the Sunny South. She is thrilling, sir, with 
the consciousness of growing power and prosperity. 
As she stands full^statured and equal among the peo- 
ple of the earth, breathing the keen air, and looking 
out upon the expanding horizon, she understands 
that her emancipation came because, in the inscru- 
table wisdom of God, her honest purpose was crossed 
and her brave armies were beaten. This is said in 
no spirit of time-serving or apology. I should be 
unjust to the South if I did not make this plain in 
this presence. The South has nothing to take back, 
nothing for which she ought to make excuses. In 
my native town of Athens there is a monument that 
crowns its eternal hills— a plain white shaft. Deep 
cut into its shining sides is a name dear to me above 
the names of men, that of a brave and simple man 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. Gl 

who died in a brave and simple faith. Not for all 
the glories of New England from Plymouth down to 
the present time would I exchange the heritage he 
left me in his patriot's death. To the foot of that 
shaft I shall send my children's children, to rever- 
ence him who ennobled their name with his heroic 
blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that 
memory, which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, 
I say the cause for which he suffered and for which 
he gave up his life was adjudged by higher and fuller 
wisdom than mine or his, and I am glad the omni- 
scient God held the battle in his own almighty hand, 
and that the American nation was saved from the 
wreck of war. 

This message, Mr. President, comes to you from 
consecrated ground. Every foot of soil about the 
city in which I live is sacred as a battle-ground of 
the republic. Every hill that invests it is hallowed 
to you by the blood of your brothers who died for 
your victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blood 
of those who died hopeless, but undaunted in defeat — 
sacred soil to all of us, rich with memories that make 
us stronger and purer and better, silent but stanch 
witness in its rich desolation of the matchless valor 
of American hearts and the deathless glory of Amer- 
ican arms, speaking an eloquent witness, in its white 
peace and prosperity, to the indissoluble union of 
American States and the imperishable brotherhood 
of the American people. 

What answer has New England to this message? 
Will she permit the prejudice of war to remain in 
the hearts of the conquerors when it has died, out in 
the hearts of the conquered ? Will she transmit this 
prejudice to the next generation, that in hearts that 



62 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

never felt the generous ardor of conflict it may pre- 
cipitate itself? 

"Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the 
hand which straight from his soldier's heart Grant 
offered Lee at Appomattox ? "Will she make the vis- 
ion of a restored and happy people, which gathered 
about the couch of your dying captain, filling his 
heart with peace, touching his lips with praise, and 
glorifying his path to the grave — will she make this 
vision, upon which the last sigh of his expiring soul 
breathed a benediction, a cheat or a delusion? If 
she does, the South, never abject in asking for com- 
radeship, must accept with dignity its refusal. If 
she does not refuse to accept in frankness and sin- 
cerity this message of good-will and friendship, then 
will the prophecy of Webster, delivered to this very 
society forty years ago amid tremendous applause, be 
verified in its fullest and final sense, when he said: 
"Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we 
should remain united as we have been for sixty years, 
citizens of the same country, members of the same 
government, all united now and united forever. 
There have been difficulties, contentions, and contro- 
versies, but I tell you that in my humble judgment 
this glorious sisterhood will henceforth all march 
one way." 



Thoughts on the Battle-field oe Fort Donel- 
son. — John F. House. 
On as lovely an autumn day as ever smiled upon 
the earth I stood on a commanding height overlook- 
ing the battle-field of Fort Donelson. From a lofty 
staff in the center of the grounds the American flag- 
floated gracefully in the breeze. At the base of the 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 63 

hill the beautiful Cumberland, like a belt of silver, 
glided on its peaceful way. No iron-clad monitors 
now thundered on its bosom, and the surrounding 
hills, no longer swept by the storm of battle, seemed 
quietly dreaming in the golden light that bathed 
their summits. Just in sight were the old Confeder- 
ate rifle-pits. The winds and storms and rains of in- 
tervening years had filled them almost even with the 
surface of the earth. I looked upon the graves that 
lay around me with no other feeling than reverence 
and respect. The grave that contains the ashes of 
one who had faith enough in his cause to die for it, 
whether his cause and mine were the same or not, 
could never fail to command from me the homage 
due to integrity of purpose and lofty courage. As I 
walked amid these graves I asked myself the ques- 
tion: "Did these men die in vain? Is the Union 
they fought to save never to be restored except in 
theory and in name? Is the sectional strife that 
preceded and produced the war still to pursue the 
unhappy country like a sleepless and remorseless 
Nemesis ? 

But the place and its associations called up thoughts 
of other men. They too, with that sublime faith in 
the justice of their cause which forms the martyr's 
crown and the hero's passport to immortality, had 
found a soldier's sepulcher. But no grateful govern- 
ment had gathered their bones into magnificent cem- 
eteries, adorned with all that wealth can command or 
taste suggest to beautify those cities of the dead. 
Thousands of them sleep far away from the homes of 
their childhood, in the deep bosom of forests where 
human footsteps rarely tread. The birds of the wild 
wood sing their morning and evening hymns above 



64 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

their unrecorded graves. No monumental marble 
stands sentinel at the spot where they sleep; no an- 
cestral oaks shall ever throw their welcome shadows 
above their heroic dust. By many their names are 
cast out as evil, and hands are not wanting that 
would write the word " traitor " as the epitaph upon 
their tombs. But no amount of detraction can shake 
my faith in their integrity, and no temptation of 
power or position ever make me false to their memo- 
ries. My blood must turn to water, and my heart 
become as cold as death can make it, before I can 
consent to assail their motives while they lived or 
insult the humble graves in which they sleep. I know 
they were actuated by purposes as pure, by a courage 
as high as ever followed any banner or illustrated the 
annals of any land. 

Henry W. Grady. — John Temple Graves. 
First of all the instruments which fitted the genius 
of Henry "W. Grady to expression was his radiant 
pen. Long after it had blazed his way to eminence 
and usefulness he waked the power of that surpass- 
ing oratory which has bettered all the sentiment of 
his country and enriched the ripe vocabulary of the 
world. Nothing in the history of human speech will 
equal the steppings of his eloquence into glory. In 
a single night he caught the heart of the country 
into his warm embrace, and leaped from a banquet 
revelry into national fame. It is at last the crowning 
evidence of his genius that he held to the end un- 
broken the high fame so easily won; and, sweeping 
from triumph to triumph, with not one leaf of his 
laurels withered by time or staled by circumstance, 
died the foremost orator of all the world. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 65 

It is marvelous, past all telling, how lie caught the 
heart of the country in the fervid glow of his own. 
All the forces of our statesmanship have riot pre- 
vailed for union as the ringing speeches of this bright, 
magnetic man. His eloquence was the electric cur- 
rent over which the positive and negative poles of 
American sentiment were rushing to a warm embrace. 
It was the transparent medium through which the 
bleared eyes of sections were learning to see each 
other clearer and to love each other better. He was 
meeting bitterness in the warmth of his patrial sym- 
pathies, sections were being linked in the logic of 
his liquid sentences, and when he died he was lit- 
erally loving a nation into peace. 

Fit and dramatic climax to a glorious mission that 
he should have lived to carry the South's last and 
greatest message to the center of the nation's culture; 
then, with the gracious answer to his transcendent 
service locked in his loyal heart, came home to die 
among the people he had served! Fitter still that 
as he walked in final triumph through the streets of 
his beloved city he should have caught upon his 
knightly head that wreath of Southern roses, richer 
jewels than Victoria wears, plucked by the hands of 
Georgia women, borne by the hands of Georgia men, 
and flung about him with a loving tenderness that 
crowned him for his burial, that, in the unspeakable 
fragrance of Georgia's full and sweet approval, he 
might " draw the drapery of his couch about him and 
lie down to pleasant dreams!" 

If I should seek to touch the core of all his great- 
ness, I would lay my hand upon his heart. I should 
speak of his humanity, his almost inspired sympa- 
thies, his sweet philanthropy, and the noble heartful- 
5 



66 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

ness that ran like a silver current through his life. 
His heart was the furnace where he fashioned all his 
glowing speech. Love was the current that sent his 
golden sentences pulsing through the world, and in 
the honest throb of human sympathies he found the 
anchor that held him steadfast to all things great 
and true. He was the incarnate triumph of a heart- 
f ul man. 

I thank God, as I stand above my buried friend, 
that there is not one ignoble memory in all the shin- 
ing pathway of his fame. Of all the glorious gifts 
that the Almighty gave him, not one was ever bent 
to willing service in unworthy cause. He lived to 
make the world about him better. With all his 
splendid might he helped to build a happier, hearti- 
er, and more wholesome sentiment among his kind. 
And in fondness mixed with reverence I believe that 
the Christ of Calvary, who died for men, has found 
a welcome sweet for one who fleshed within his per- 
son the golden spirit of the new commandment, and 
spent his powers in glorious living for his race. 

O brilliant and incomparable Grady, we lay for 
a season thy precious dust beneath the soil that bore 
and cherished thee, but we fling back against all our 
brightening skies the thoughtless speech that calls 
thee dead. God reigns and his purpose lives, and al- 
though these brave lips are silent here the seeds sown in 
this incarnate eloquence will scatter patriots through 
the years to come, and perpetuate thy living in a race 
of nobler men. 

Kobeet E. Lee. — John B. Gordon. 
When the light of impartial history shall be thrown 
upon the achievements of the Confederate arms they 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 67 

will be invested with a halo not less radiant than that 
which crowns the heroic daring of men in any age of 
the world. Through the matchless skill of her lead- 
ers and the inspired courage of her soldiers, the em- 
battled legions of the South were hurled upon oppos- 
ing superiority of numbers with such energy that the 
contest was prolonged for four long years, and the 
brilliancy of its events has excited the wonder of 
military science in every part of the globe. 

Had Lee, like Napoleon, with approximate equality 
of numbers, met only the minions of despotic power, 
instead of the sturdy sons of freedom, who can doubt 
that the glories of a hundred Jenas and Marengos 
would have gathered around his standard, or that 
Gettysburg would have been converted into another 
Chancellorsville, and Spottsylvania into another Ma- 
nassas ? And who can doubt for a moment that he 
would have worn these accumulated honors with the 
same exemplary modesty and abnegation of self that 
characterized his entire life? History presents no 
soldier on the one hand with a prouder record of 
victories won against obstacles apparently insur- 
mountable, and no citizen on the other with a char- 
acter more lordly and knightly. When Lee died 
chivalry bowed its head in grief, and Christendom 
realized that a great light had gone out. We can al- 
most imagine that the great guns of Von Moltke, 
then thundering before the gates of Paris, ceased 
their sullen roar in transient recognition of the mo- 
mentous event. There was about this man an eleva- 
tion of purpose, a magnanimity of spirit, and an in- 
tegrity of heart that purified the very atmosphere 
around him. 

His life was an emphatic rebuke of all bitterness 



68 THE PEARL SPEAKER 

and meanness of soul; and no unworthy motive, no 
social passion, no selfish ambition could live in his 
presence. Unlike other objects in nature, Gen. Lee's 
character needed no distance to lend enchantment. 
Here was one man whose personal, intellectual, and 
moral character, grand as it was graceful, grew great- 
er and nobler upon more intimate acquaintance, until, 
like that marvel of the ages, that wonder of all art, 
the Apollo of Borne, it appeared absolutely faultless 
in its symmetry as well as in its proportions. Such 
a life and such a character are inspirations to future 
generations, and they will be forever to our memo- 
ries and to the imagination of men a model of per- 
fect, ideal manhood, enhancing our affections and 
enchanting the world. 

Memorial Day. — The Nashville American. 
This decoration of the graves of Confederate sol- 
diers, who gave up their lives before the battle-flags of 
the lost cause were furled forever from the gaze 
of men, is an occasion that arouses every element of 
tenderness and admiration in our nature. To seal 
and sustain the action of the South in what was be- 
lieved to be the God-given right of the States to se- 
cede from a Union which they themselves helped to 
create, hundreds of thousands of brave and true 
Southern soldiers laid down their lives and sacrificed 
all on earth that the fates had given to bless and 
beautify existence. With those who lost property 
these solemn occasions can have no connection. But 
the soldier who could go out as did he who represented 
the Confederacy, and bare his bosom and hazard bold- 
ly upon the die of war the piled up fortune of genera- 
tions, is not the man to ever surrender in time of peace 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 69 

in the great struggle for wealth and fame. He has in 
fact not struggled in vain, for to-day he is a prouder 
and greater man than when he passed in review be- 
fore the peerless Lee or followed on to victory behind 
the glittering sword of Stonewall Jackson. He was 
great then, but he is greater now. The marvelous 
story which tells of his heroism at the Wilderness 
and at Shiloh and at Manassas pales into dimness 
when compared with that grander story which tells 
of his civil and -industrial triumphs at Atlanta, at 
Nashville, at Chattanooga, and at Birmingham. The 
soldier who invaded Pennsylvania and left an arm 
on Cemetery Heights will go down to posterity in the 
annals of the world's history as a sublime character, 
but he who followed Lee in the work of educating 
the youth of those who survived the war to win in 
peace where their fathers had failed in war, and by 
his own course of ambitious, unconquerable, and 
virtuous citizenship set example to coming genera- 
tions, is the hero to whom the laurel and the ivy 
should be awarded. 

But these memorial days are not for them. They 
are for the dead heroes who have been apotheosized 
by those who lived after them. They are for the 
martyrs whose fame is secure and whose graves shall 
year after year be marked by the floral tributes of 
loving hands and devoted hearts. 



The Sword of Lee. — Father Byan. 
Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright, 

Flashed the sword of Lee. 
Far in the front of the deadly fight, 
High o'er the brave in the cause of right, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light, 
Led us to victory. 

Out of its scabbard where full long 

It slumbered peacefully, 
Roused from its rest by the battle sound, 
Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong, 
Guarding the right, and avenging the wrong, 

Gleamed the sword of Lee. 

Forth from its scabbard high in air, 

Beneath Virginia's sky, 
And they who saw it gleaming there, 
And knew who bore it, knelt to swear 
That where that sword led they would dare 

To follow and to die. 

Out of its scabbard! Never hand 
Waved sword with stain so free. 
Nor purer sword led braver band, 
Nor braver bled for a brighter land, 
Nor brighter land had cause as grand, 
Nor cause a chief like Lee. 

Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed 

That sword might victor be! 
And when our tiumph was delayed, 
And many a heart grew sore afraid, 
We still hoped on while gleamed the blade 

Of noble Robert Lee. 

Forth from its scabbard! All in vain 

Forth flashed the sword of Lee. 
'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again; 
It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Defeated, yet without a stain, 
Proudly and peacefully. 



Egbert E. Lee.— J. Baeeon Hope. 
Our history is a shifting sea, 

Locked in by lofty land, 
And its two great " Pillars of Hercules " 

Above the shining sand, 
I here behold in majesty 

Uprising on each hand. 

These pillars of our history, 

In fame forever young, 
Are known in every latitude 

And named in every tongue, 
And down through all the ages 

Their story shall be sung. 

The Father of his country 
Stands above that shut-in sea, 

A glorious symbol to the world 
Of all that's great and free; 

And to-day Yirginia matches him, 
And matches him with Lee. 

Who shall blame the social order 

Which gave us men as great as these? 

Who shall condemn the forest soil 
Which brings forth giant trees? 

"Who presume. to doubt that Providence 
Shapes out our destinies? 

Who, again I ask the question, 
Who may challenge in debate 



72 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

With any show of truthfulness 

Our former social state, 
"Which brought forth more than heroes, 

In their lives supremely great? 

Then stand up, O my countrymen, 
And unto God give thanks; 

On mountains and on hill-sides 
And by sloping river banks, 

Thank God that you were worthy 
Of the grand Confederate ranks. 

Peace has come. God gave his blessing 
On the fact and on the name. 

The South speaks no invective, 
And she writes no word of blame; 

But we call all men to witness 
That we stand up without shame. 

O ask me, if you please, to paint 
Storm-winds upon the sea; 

Tell me to weigh great Cheops, 
Set volcanic forces free; 

But bid me not, my countrymen, 
To picture Robert Lee. 

My eyes are pained and dazzled 
By a radiance pure and white, 

Shot back by the burnished armor 
Of that glory-belted knight. 

His was all the Norman's polish 

And sobriety of grace; 
All the Goth's majestic figure; 

All the Roman's noble face; 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 73 

And he stood the tall exemplar 
Of a grand historic race. 

Baronial were his acres where 

Potomac's waters run; 
High his lineage; and his blazon 

Was by cunning heralds done; 
But better still he might have said, 

Of his "works" he was the "son." 

Truth walked beside him always. 

From his childhood's early years 
Honor followed as his shadow, 

Valor lightened all his cares; 
And he rode — that grand Virginian — 

Last of all the cavaliers. 

As his troubles gathered round him, 
Thick as waves that beat the shore, 

Atra Cura rode behind him, 

Famine's shadow filled his door, 

Still he wrought such deeds as mortal 
Man had never wrought before. 

Then came the end, my countrynen, 
The last thunderbolts were hurled. 

Worn out by his own victories 
His battle-flags were furled, 

And a history was finished 

That has changed the modern world. 

As some saint in the arena 

Of a bloody Roman game, 
As the prize of his endeavor 

Put on immortal frame, 



74 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Through long agonies our soldier 
Won the crown of martial fame. 

But there came a greater glory 
To that man supremely great, 

When his gleaming sword he laid aside 
In peace to serve his State; 

For in his classic solitude 
He grandly mastered fate. 

He triumphed and he did not die. 

No funeral bells are tolled. 
But on that day in Lexington 

Fame came herself to hold 
His stirrup while he mounted 

To ride down the streets of gold. 

And here to-day, my countrymen, 

I tell you Lee shall ride 
With that other "rebel" down the years, 

Twin "rebels" side by side; 
And confronting such a vision 

All our grief gives place to pride. 

These two shall ride immortal, 
And shall ride abreast of time; 

Shall light up stately history, 
And blaze in epic rhyme; 

Both patriots, both Virginians true, 
Both " rebels," both sublime. 

Our past is full of glory, 

It is a shut-in sea, 
The pillars overlooking it 

Are Washington and Lee; 
And a future spreads before us 

Not unworthy of the free. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 75 

And here and now, my countrymen, 

Upon this sacred sod, 
Let us feel, it was "our Father" 

Who above us held the rod, 
And from hills to sea, like Eobert Lee, 

Bow reverently to God. 



In Memory op the Confederate Dead. — Wm. C. P. 
Breckenridge. 
The Federal government, with pious care, has 
gathered the bones of those who fell under the stars 
and stripes, and, re-interring them in handsome 
cemeteries with appropriate monumental memorials, 
will perpetuate their names and preserve the records 
of their deeds and death. It owes this to its dead. 
No people ever did, no people ever will accomplish 
any thing worth remembrance, the memory of whose 
dead is not preserved with reverential sacredness, 
and their graves adorned with grateful lovingness. 
We appreciate and honor the feeling that prompts 
that tribute. To the dead I bear no enmity; upon 
the grave of the heroic dead, even if living he were 
my enemy, I have naught to lay but fragrant flowers. 
But the opponents of those dead were not foreign foes ; 
and the adversaries who could resist with varying 
fortunes such a government, putting forth all its en- 
ergies and defended by such armies, must have pos- 
sessed the loftiest qualities of men and soldiers. If 
they be heroes who fell at Manassas and are now 
gathered in the national cemeteries, surely those who 
drove them in flight and crushed their resistance 
must also be heroes, and their unmarked graves 
scattered in mournful numbers over the hills and 



70 1HE PEARL SPEAKER. 

ravines of that memorable battle-field deserve honor 
at some one's hands. Ah! at whose? The South 
accepts this trust. They who laid down their lives 
with Johnston at Shiloh, who fell in the wild charge 
with Jackson at Chancellorsville, who went to God 
from the woods of Chickamauga, who gave up their 
lives as they cleared the underbrush of the Wilder- 
ness; who encircled with their bodies the dying Cle- 
burne in the ditch at Franklin — are our dead. No gov- 
ernment gathers up their bones with paternal care 
and preserves the records of their glorious lives and 
sublime death. Their government is dead. But we 
their comrades, and those who loved them for their 
cause, and our children after us, will year by year 
strew over their graves the sweetest flowers of spring. 
The neglected dead — the dead upon whom cowards 
may have wreaked an impotent revenge — may be 
plowed under the furrow their blood enriched, but 
the world will listen in rapt admiration as we tell of 
their dauntless courage and impetuous charge. Their 
names are written on the hearts of their countrymen; 
their deeds are a priceless heritage to our children, 
and will be cherished as long as men worship truth 
or women love the brave. O you who cheered us as 
we departed, prayed as we fought, arid welcomed us 
when we returned, let us never hesitate to own that 
every one who died for the South is our brother, and 
let ns swear that as long as the battle-field remains 
he that died on it shall be honored. We do this in 
no spirit of enmity. We bury the animosities, the 
hatreds, the passions of the past. We pray the day 
may come when the graves of all the dead may be- 
come the common care of all the living. Across these 
very graves we hold the olive-branch. We recognize 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 77 

the death of our cause. We accepted the decision of 
battle; wagered all, and lost. But our dead must be 
honored. And this day I utter what I believe to be 
the universal feeling of the South: never will the 
graves of our dead be undecorated by us until a com- 
mon government and a united people treat all the 
dead alike. 

And Kentucky to-day dedicates this monument in 
part to the past of her mother, Virginia. Virginia! 
her name is the synonym of every lofty quality. No 
oppression can degrade, no tyranny disgrace her. 

Her history is the most romantic, chivalric, and 
glorious of all her sisters. From her womb have 
sprung the peers of earth's greatest sons: soldiers, 
statesmen, orators, patriots unsurpassed in the chron- 
icles of man. While she stood the Confederacy stood, 
when she fell, all was lost. What memories cluster 
about her, what jewels blaze in her crown! Amid 
the throng which crowds the pathway of time there 
walks no statelier figure arrayed in more glorious 
garments. Upon her banner is engraved every battle 
from Bunker Hill to Yorktown; in her hands are the 
scrolls upon which are written the Declaration, the 
Constitution, the bills for religious freedom; upon 
her phylacteries blaze the names of Washington and 
Henry, the Lees and Marshall, Jefferson and Madi- 
son, and the deathless host she has given to liberty; 
and now in part we dedicate this monument to the 
queen of earthly commonwealths. 



Intolerance. — William J. Armstrong. 
Fellow-citizens, you have perhaps been somewhere 
told, as if it were the last refinement of appreciative 



78 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

praise, that the Constitution of your country should 
be valued as if each word were the coined substance 
of gold. Permit me to say that that eulogy is a sick- 
ly and sentimental slander of its mighty guardianship 
of human rights — a damning with faint praise ap- 
proaching almost to infinite mockery. Gold, indeed! 
The American Constitution is drained from human 
agony and tears. That Constitution represents the 
gathered warnings of liberty from all the ages. Its 
every clause is conceived from the measureless an- 
guish of our self -tortured race; its every word is dis- 
tilled from the blood of martyred millions. In the 
recital of those two brief propositions of intolerance 
may be heard the shrieks of the myriad followers of 
Christ nailed to the gibbets of the Caesars; may be 
heard the groans of millions of martyrs slain by fag- 
ot, wheel, and flood. In this insidious advance upon 
the Constitution may be heard the sobs and moans of 
desolated women through a thousand years of wars 
for opinion, the clash and clang of bloody steel, the 
thunder of slaughtering chariot and cannon driven 
by mortal hate and frenzy on batttle-fields heaped 
with religious murder., through twenty centuries of 
human history. 

From the shadow of these horrors the Constitution 
of this republic was made to save us and to protect 
humanity in all the coming ages. 

The fathers of the American Kevolution believed 
that opinion and conscience should be held sacred. 
They believed this because they believed by whatever 
antecedents a man came to hold an opinion, you 
could not by process of law invade the structure of 
his brain and exterminate it. They believed this be- 
cause they believed that there did not anywhere exist 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 79 

between the earth and the heavens on this planet a 
power wise enough to authoritatively administer the 
mysteries of the infinite. They believed this because 
they believed that that which a man held as a neces- 
sary result of the inscrutable processes of brain, be- 
yond the limits of his will, was not a crime. That 
sublime Constitution is their work. 

It is this august fabric of law, fresh with a revelation, 
hoary with the wisdom and warning of all the centu- 
ries, vindicated on this continent beyond experiment 
by six generations of men, which is now being as- 
sailed by a foreign power and by domestic fanaticism. 

Touch not religion with the State. Lay not on the 
State the finger of religion. The day on which dis- 
crimination for religious opinion is inaugurated in 
the administration of this government will be the 
day of the death of this republic, the failure of the 
American experiment, the funeral of civil liberty. 

Ah! these men do not see the destroying demon of 
intolerance they are invoking for their own children. 
They forget the ages of blood from which this fabric 
of freedom has been slowly reared. What if after 
their beliefs have been established and intrenched 
by law there should sweep back, as once in France, 
the tides oi unbelief, and the goddess of reason should 
sit enthroned in the Capitol? In that bitter hour 
they would recall the sacred teachings of the fathers 
of this nation, and the countenance of liberty would 
glow with a divine radiance only in the moment when 
it was lost. 

Since the beginnings of man the features of the 
absolute have been veiled. Standing between two 
worlds, with instincts beyond life, and hopes be- 
yond death, from this "bank and shoal of" time 



80 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

man lias looked with straining eyes toward the 
unseen, attempting to illumine with his frail candle 
of reason the halls of the eternal. Afflicted by sor- 
rows, he has awaited in all times and all lands the 
merciful justice of the unknown. With moans and 
tears he has in many a name and many a tongue for- 
mulated in creeds his measure of the infinite. Every 
faith that has given courage to our kind has been 
held sacred by its worshipers. Every doubt to the 
eye of mercy is more sacred than faith, for it gropes 
in suffering. For the struggling tides of men, fellow- 
workers and pilgrims on this mist-ridden shore, the 
wisdom that remains for this world is charity, the 
doctrine out of Nazareth, the creed of love to all 
mankind. On American soil a century ago, by the 
guidance of history and the help of the Almighty, we 
built for the hope of the world the political monu- 
ment of this sublime creed. Under its impartial 
shadow the worshipers of truth, whether in church 
or wood, in mosque, in synagogue, or in temple, 
have known no discrimination for opinion. Let it 
be the oath of Americans to guard that monument 
till the last hour of time. 



Koger Williams.— William J. Armstrong. 
This proposition is most ingenious and plausible: it 
is an appealing and fascinating argument; it is as in- 
nocent as the babe slumbering in its cradle in the 
light of a summer afternoon. And yet electric force 
and hydrostatic pressure, combined and operated by 
the genius of man, could not compress into another 
statement as much mingled falsehood with truth, as 
much malignity to the human race. For three thou- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 81 

sand years this argument lias scarred the history of 
this world with murder. 

By this argument the hemlock was administered 
to Socrates, seized from the gardens of Athens; and 
Nero lit the nights of Rome with the followers of 
Christ converted into human torches. By this argu- 
ment Mohammed swept the plains of the world with 
flame and sword, Galileo found the filth and gloom 
of a dungeon, and Bruno and Savonarola felt the ag- 
onies of the stake. By this argument a hundred 
thousand Frenchmen were slaughtered in a night, 
and a million of Moors on the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. By this argument the howling passions 
of men were for forty centuries let loose, every plain 
of Asia and valley of Europe blighted with human 
slaughter, and the civil governments of the world 
turned the sunny and beautiful face of this planet 
into a carnival scene of flame and blood. By this ar- 
gument in seventeen centuries from the birth of 
Christ one hundred millions of men had gone to un- 
timely death under the religious wars of Europe, slain 
in the name of God and the kingdom of love. At 
the end of two hundred years more, in the face of 
the sunrise of the twentieth century, its malign and 
bloody ghost still stalks the high-ways of the civil- 
ized world. 

Sublime men, as if inspired by revelation, have from 
time to time defined the principle by which the king- 
doms of this world and the kingdom that is not of 
this world can exist side by side without murder. 

But it was left to a greater than these to make this 

declaration as broad as the scope of human need. 

Out of the mists and mountains of Wales into Pres- 

byterial England came a man who, lifting his voice 

6 



82 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

above hierarchies and kings, cried out: "The civil 
power has no jurisdiction over the human con- 
science." 

That man was Roger Williams. Down amid the 
shadows and fogs of his sea-girt land there had fallen 
upon this man an inspiration that was to roll back 
the tide of human hate and fear that had devastated 
the world for forty centuries. Reflecting upon the 
suffering of his race, there had broken into his brain 
the conception, simple and sublime, of the words of 
the gentle and lowly Nazarene: "Render unto Caesar 
the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things 
that are God's." 

England was not big enough to hold this inspired 
man. His continued presence would have split the 
throne of the Tudors. From religious persecution 
Roger Williams fled to the Puritans of New England; 
but these gentlemen, who had fled from Europe to 
enjoy religious liberty, had only enough liberty for 
themselves, and not enough for Roger Williams. 
And thus this brave man fled from New England to 
the wilderness, and among the barbarians of the 
North American forests, in the province of Rhode 
Island, established the first government according 
religious toleration ever founded on this earth. 

In an age of iron intolerance the superb moral 
sense of this man pierced to the core the brazen and 
murderous sophistry of this argument that would 
bind the human soul. On the page of American 
history, above the names of Locke and Milton, let his 
name be written in letters of gold. One century later 
that seed of toleration planted by Roger Williams 
expanded into the full-blossomed tree of American 
liberty, throwing its splendor around the world. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. S3 

The following century, with all the centuries of hate 
and blood behind it for a warning example, gave 
birth to the Constitution of the United States, the 
sole monument of all history embodying the princi- 
ple established by Christ for the government of the 
earth. 

Mother. — Anonymous. 
The sun, as he courses his way in matchless splen- 
dor across the great arch of day, sending his rays 
deep into the throbbing, quivering bosom of nature, 
is a glorious object. The moon, as she moves in 
queenly majesty along the parapet of the skies, her 
royal robes radiant with star-dust that sends a glow 
as of dawn through the ethereal midnight, is an ob- 
ject of entrancing interest. The blue dome of the 
firmament, resting in pillared grandeur high above 
the green temple of the earth, through whose un- 
numbered aisles the voices of sea and air echo 
and re-echo in one long, never ending anthem of 
praise to the great Creator, has always stirred the 
human heart to profoundest admiration. But there 
is a grander and a greater than all these. The man 
whose intellect has been trained in the art and sci- 
ence of the schools, whose spirit leaps with cheerful 
alertness to champion the cause of justice and mercy, 
and to fight with never resting energy in the conflict 
of human rights ; whose honor is as true and pure as 
the temper of a Damascene blade; whose integrity is 
a wall against which the blandishments of social in- 
fluence, or political power, or worldly gain are harm- 
less and ineffectual; this is a being upon whom God 
has set his seal. But O there is a more gloriously 
beautiful one than he. I bow to the majesty and 



84 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

glory o£ mother; of lier who possesses a form and 
grace that surpasses the grace of all other created 
things; of her whose sympathy can hear the slight- 
est wail of distress as if it were the voice of a trump- 
et. Of her whose devotion does not shudder before 
the approaches of the gaunt and ghastly specter of 
poverty and want, nor waver when pestilence stalks 
through the crowded marts of the world leaving 
corpses to show which way he has gone, nor halt be- 
fore the barred gloom of the prison, nor hesitate even 
under the very shadow of the gibbet itself. 

Who lingers with unwearying frame around the 
bedside of disease? Who always catches the first 
waking breath of the sufferer as he lisps his faltering 
wish? Whose angelic sympathy smiles hope into 
the aching soul? Who sits enthroned the sweet 
genius of home, guiding a blessed household along 
the shining ways of happiness? Whose loving coun- 
sel leads the daughter up the narrow pathway to a 
pure, virtuous, noble womanhood? Whose heart and 
soul are the treasure-house where all the aims and 
schemes of childhood are confidingly stored, then 
purified and passed back to be sweetly worked into 
the warp and woof of their little beings ? Who molds 
the plastic spirit of her boy, holds before him un- 
ceasingly the shining ideals of honor and truth, and 
points his young ambition to a lofty and honorable 
manhood? And whose gracious form lives forever 
in the memory of that boy, wherever he may be in 
the wide world, a beacon to light up his pathway 
through temptations, to call him back to rectitude 
and honor, and to inspire his soul to greater effort 
in his struggle with the world? It is the mother. 
Again I bow in reverence to her gracious presence 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 



and influence, her faultless counsel, her untiring de- 
votion, and her undying love. 



Fall of Warsaw. — Thomas Campbell. 
O sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased awhile, 
And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, 
"When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars 
Her whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars, 
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, 
Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn; 
Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, 
Presaging wrath to Poland — and to man! 

Warsaw's last champion from her heights surveyed, 
Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid. 
"O Heaven!" he cried, "my bleeding country save! 
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave? 
Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains, 
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains! 
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high, 
And swear for her to live, with her to die! " 

He said: and on the rampart heights arrayed 
His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed; 
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, 
Slow as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm; 
Low, murmuring sounds along the banners fly — 
"Revenge or death! " the watch- word and reply: 
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm, 
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm! 

In vain, alas ! in vain, ye gallant few ! 
From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew; 
O! bloodiest picture in the book of Time; 
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; 



86 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, 
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe! 
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, 
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career. 
Hope, for a season, bid the world farewell, 
And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell! 

O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, 
Why slept the sword omnipotent to save? 
Where was thine arm, O Vengeance! where thy rod, 
That smote the foes of Zion and of God? 

Departed spirits of the mighty dead, 
Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled, 
Friends of the world, restore your sword to man, 
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van; 
Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone, 
And make her arm puissant as your own! 
O once again to Freedom's cause return 
The patriot Tell! the Bruce of Bannockburn! 

Yes, thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see 
That man hath yet a soul — and dare be free! 
A little while, along thy saddening plains, 
The starless night of Desolation reigns; 
Truth shall restore the light by Nature given, 
And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of heaven! 
Prone to the dust, Oppression shall be hurled, 
Her name, her nature, withered from the world. 



Henhy W. Grady.— De. J. W. Lee. 

Henry W. Grady must be classed with the leaders 
who are in the van-guard of human progress. He 
looked from the side of the mind that borders the 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 87 

universe of ideas, visions, relations. He was an ide- 
alist and looked through the imagination into the 
kingdom of light. He saw truth and beauty and love 
billowing away to infinity. He despised not the 
world of hard limitation and fact, nor did he find his 
rest and inspiration in it. He slaked his thirst from 
the waters that flow from under the throne of God. 
Violets and buttercups which grew on the mountain- 
side did not waste their fragrance as he passed by, 
but there they grew, covering the hills of day for 
him with their blue and their beauty. Leaves in the 
autumn woods were not ignored by him, but he cul- 
tivated the habit of looking toward the clime where 
the leaves never die. All sights and sounds and 
seasons in the world of change and death were loved 
by him; but a window there was in his mind, look- 
ing into an illimitable realm where all sights brought 
gladness, all sounds hope, all seasons inspiration. 

Genius of the highest order is capable of express- 
ing itself in all the forms of art. Michael Angelo 
was by turns poet, painter, sculptor, and architect. 
So the genius of Henry W. Grady so far arose above 
the plane of ordinary talent that it was capable of 
transmutation into any of the fine arts. Had he 
lived in the sixteenth century, he would have been a 
painter. Had he lived in the seventeenth century, 
and in England, he would have been a poet. In 
thought and spirit he lived in the boundless, the 
radiant, the beautiful. He saw visions as beautiful 
as Rubens's, and temples as perfect as that of Phidias. 
But his genius was controlled by his heart, and his 
sympathy for men was so constant and so universal 
that it denied his genius expression in forms which 
only touched the few. His love impelled his thought 



88 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

to expression as wide as the needs, as deep as the 
suffering, and as complex as the interests and rela- 
tions of his fellow-men. 

What medium did he unconsciously select by 
which to express the ideas of truth and beauty and 
goodness, that they might have the widest flow? 
What instrument permitted him to touch most peo- 
ple? In what way could he get into relation with 
most human wants? What touched man on most 
sides of his character and stimulated most thought 
and provoked most endeavor? It was the age of the 
newspaper. It flew into every man's home, and car- 
ried a message to every man's thought. Into the 
newspaper he would breathe his message, and through 
the newspaper he would tell to men the visions he 
saw of hope and help and inspiration. The news- 
paper became his brush, letters his pigments, and the 
South his canvas. Into every man's home he would 
send a message that would stir his heart and move 
his will. Through men he would embody the ideas 
he saw, and put them into fields of waving grain, into 
cattle on every hill, into a home for every family, 
and around every home he would plant orchards and 
vineyards, and trace vines and flowers over every 
door. Thus he would paint a picture, standing over 
men, under men, and blessing men. 

Did ever man have ambition nobler than to lift his 
countrymen from want to plenty, from dejection to 
hope, from misunderstanding to love and charity? 
Did ever fairer, lovelier vision float before the artist's 
eye from out the sky of the ineffable, to be thrown 
into form sublimer, or poem kinder, or music sweeter? 
He used beauty to stimulate human courage, to em- 
bellish human spirits, to enlarge human thought. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 89 

His conceptions gathered themselves into clothes for 
human forms, into bread for children's months, into 
inspiration for human hearts. He was God's almon- 
er. Freely he received, freely he gave. Counted by 
years his life was not long, but it is my honest con- 
viction that he got more of heaven's wealth into this 
world and more of heaven's hope and joy into the 
hearts of his countrymen than any man of his time. 
Far beyond any man I know he drove out life's shad- 
ows by the light of eternity's day, and hushed its tu- 
mults by the repose of eternity's truth. 



Andrew Jackson. — Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald. 

What is the meaning of the pageant of this day? 
What means this parade of citizen soldiery, this 
music of drum and fife, the booming of artillery, the 
eloquence of the orator, the smiles of beauty, and the 
benediction of religion on this eighth day of Janu- 
ary, 1890? It means the renaissance of valor, patri- 
otism, honor, and the true chivalry that never quails 
before the face of man, but which is ready to die for 
woman, and stands uncovered in humility before 
God. It is the voice of Tennessee and the republic 
invoking the spirit of Andrew Jackson, and saying: 
"Come back, old hero, with your heart of fire and 
nerves of steel, and ride again at the head of the 
moving columns. Come back, and let us hear again 
the ring of your martial voice along the lines, and 
catch the flash of your eagle eye. Come back again, 
Old Hickory, and demonstrate to us, as you did to 
our fathers, that a human will, backed by an honest 
soul and patriotic purpose, is invincible. 

" Come back, Andrew Jackson, that we may give you 



90 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

a demonstration that a true man, whatever might be 
his minor faults, will have true followers, and that a 
noble people will forgive the blemishes, from which 
none are wholly free, if the heart be gold. 

" Come back to reanimate the chivalry that glorified 
this land with the knightliest men and the queenliest 
women that ever lived on this earth; that chivalry 
which in its simplest expression was embodied in the 
parting words of the mother to her boy: 'Good-by, 
Andy, my son, and take my parting advice: Never 
give a lie-bill, never carry a slander suit into a court 
of justice, and never take the lie.' He was her own 
son, and literally he followed the brave little woman's 
advice. If he was not always mild, he was always 
true; if he was not always saintly, he was always 
heroic." 

Jackson's dust sleeps here in Tennessee where he 
lived and died, and where his impress will remain as 
long as this Capitol hill shall rest on its rocky foun- 
dations, or the rim of the Tennessee basin encircle 
the spot where he reposes by the side of his beloved 
Rachel, awaiting the reveille of the final muster of 
the judgment-clay. Here rests his mortal part, but 
his spirit still lives and will never die. He has 
stamped his character upon the people, making cow- 
ardice the one unpardonable sin. He has inspired 
such a chivalrous sentiment toward woman that in 
this city of Nashville no Tennesseean remains seated 
in a street-car when woman stands, whether she be 
the matchlessly beautiful belle, sparkling in smiles 
and jewels, and arrayed in finest apparel, or an aged 
toiler of the poorer class, with wrinkled face, bent 
form, and calloused hands. 

Come back, Andrew Jackson, to repeat in thunder 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 91 

tones your immortal maxim: "Ask nothing that is 
not right, submit to nothing that is wrong;" a max- 
im that embodies the golden rule of political ethics, 
and crystallizes the sentiment and avows the purpose 
which must guide the action and nerve the souls of 
people worthy of freedom; a maxim that means war 
upon every scheme of legislative robbery, every pi- 
ratical plundering combination ; a maxim that means 
that liberty is sweeter than life, and that every people 
must be the guardians and defenders of their own 
freedom. 

Come back, Andrew Jackson, and ride again at the 
head of the volunteer soldiery, not those who were 
with you at Talladega, Emuckfaw, and New Orleans; 
not with those who rode with Forrest and Cheatham 
and Hatton and Zollicoffer; not with those who came 
out of the fiery furnace of the late revolution alive, 
whose names will be enrolled with those of the heroic 
dead when they go to join their old comrades in the 
land of souls ; but to lead by the inspiration of your 
words and deeds in the battle which must be fought 
by this generation for all that is precious in our in- 
heritance of constitutional government and Chris- 
tian civilization. Come back, O man of the people, 
and ride again at the head of the mighty host that is 
rallying for this fight. Let our old men catch once 
more the sight of the idol of their youthful enthusi- 
asm; and let our young men fall into line, and keep 
step in the forward march under the lead of the pa- 
triot hero, who whipped the British, who whipped thft 
Indians, who whipped the bank, who by his repent- 
ance and his faith whipped the devil, and who, being 
with us in the inspiration of his noble life, will help 
us to whip every foe that threatens the peace, the 



92 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

honor, the prosperity, and the unity of this great re- 
public. 

Duluth.— Proctor Knott. 

Sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine where the 
termini of this great and indispensable road should 
be until I overheard some gentleman mention the 
name of "Duluth." Duluth! the word fell upon my 
ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the 
gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in 
the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of an 
angel's whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleep- 
ing innocence. Duluth ! 'twas the name for which my 
soul had panted for years, as the hart panted for 
water-brooks. But where was Duluth? Never, in 
all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened 
by seeing the celestial word in print. And I felt a 
profounder humiliation in my ignorance, that its 
dulcet syllables had never before ravished my de- 
lighted ear. I asked my friends about it, but they 
knew nothing of it. I rushed to the library, exam- 
ined all the maps I could find, and discovered in one 
of them a delicate, hair-like line, diverging from the 
Mississippi near a place marked Prescott, which I 
supposed was intended to represent the river St. 
Croix, but I could nowhere find Duluth. 

And yet I knew it existed somewhere, and that its 
discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the 
present century, if not of all modern times. I knew 
it was bound to exist in the very nature of things; 
that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary 
system would be incomplete without it; that the ele- 
ments of material nature would loug since have re- 
solved themselves back into original chaos, if there 
had been such an hiatus in creation as would have 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 93 

resulted in leaving out Duluth. In fact, sir, I was 
overwhelmed with the conviction that Duluth not 
only existed somewhere, but that, wherever it was, it 
was a great and glorious place. I was convinced 
that the greatest calamity that ever befell the be- 
nighted nations of the ancient world was in their 
having passed away without a knowledge of the act- 
ual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, 
never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired 
poesy, was in fact but another name for Duluth; that 
the golden orchard of Hesperides was but a poetical 
synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Du- 
luth. I was certain that Herodotus had died a mis- 
erable death, because in all his travels and with all 
his geographical research he had never heard of Du- 
luth. I knew that if the immortal spirit of Homer 
could look down from another heaven than that cre- 
ated by his own celestial genius upon the long lines 
of pilgrims from every nation of the earth to the 
gushing fountain of poesy opened by the touch of his 
magic wand, if he could be permitted to behold the 
vast assemblage of grand and glorious productions 
of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired 
strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that 
instead of lavishing all the stores of his mighty gen- 
ius upon the fall of Troy, it had not been his more 
blessed lot to crystallize in deathless song the rising 
glories of Duluth. Yet, sir, had it not been for this 
map, kindly furnished me by the legislature of Min- 
nesota, I might have gone down to my obscure and 
humble grave in an agony of despair, because I could 
nowhere find Duluth. Had such been my melan- 
choly fate, I have no doubt that with the last feeble 
pulsation of my breaking heart, with the last faint 



94 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

exhalation of my fleeting breath, I should have whis- 
pered: "Where is Duluth?" But, thanks to the be- 
neficence of that band of ministering angels who 
have their bright abodes in the far off capital of 
Minnesota, just as the agony of my anxiety was about 
to culminate in the frenzy of despair, this blessed 
map was placed in my hands, and as I unfolded it, a 
resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before 
me, such as I imagine burst upon the enraptured 
vision of the wandering peri, through the opening 
gates of paradise. There, there, for the first time 
my enchanted eye rested upon the ravishing word 
"Duluth." 

Same Continued. — No 2. 

This map, sir, as it appears from its title, is intend- 
ed to illustrate the position of Puluth in the United 
States; but if gentlemen will examine it I think they 
will concur with me in the opinion that it is far too 
modest in its pretensions. It not only illustrates the 
position of Duluth in the United States, but exhibits 
its relations with all created things. It even goes 
further than this. It lifts the shadowy veil of futur- 
ity, and affords us a view of the golden prospects of 
Duluth far along the dim vista of ages yet to come. 

If gentlemen will examine it, they will find Duluth 
not only in the center of the map, but represented in 
the center of a series of concentric circles one hun- 
dred miles apart, and some of them as much as four 
thousand miles in diameter, embracing alike in their 
tremendous sweep the fragrant savannas of the sun- 
lit South and the eternal solitudes of snow that man- 
tle the ice-bound North. How these circles were 
produced is perhaps one of those primordial myste- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 95 

ries that tlie most skillful paleologists will never 
be able to explain. But the fact is, sir, Duluth is 
pre-eminently a central place, for I am told by gen- 
tlemen who have been so reckless of their own per- 
sonal safety as to venture away into those awful re- 
gions where Duluth is supposed to be that it is 
so exactly in the center of the visible universe that 
the sky comes down precisely the same distance all 
around it. 

I am unable to say where its exact location is, or 
whether it is lying around loose. I really cannot 
tell whether it is one of those ethereal creations of 
intellectual frost-work, more intangible than the rose- 
tinted clouds of a summer sunset; one of those airy 
exhalations of the speculator's brain, which 'I am 
told are ever flitting in the form of towns and cities 
along those lines of railroad built with government 
subsidies, luring the unwary settlers as the mirage 
of the desert lures the famished traveler on and ever 
on until it fades away in the darkening horizon; or 
whether it is a real, substantial city, all staked off, 
with the lots marked with their owners' names, like 
that proud commercial metropolis discovered on the 
desirable shores of San Domingo. But, however 
that may be, I am satisfied Duluth is there; for I see 
it stated on this map that it is exactly thirty-nine 
hundred and ninety miles from Liverpool. 

Then, sir, there is the climate of Duluth, unques- 
tionably the most salubrious and delightful to be 
found anywhere on the Lord's earth. I have always 
supposed the cold on Lake Superior was cold enough 
for nine months of the year to freeze the smoke- 
stack off a locomotive. But, gentlemen, I have great- 
ly deceived myself; for I see it represented on this 



96 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

map that Duluth is situated exactly half -way between 
the latitudes of Paris and Yenice ; so those who have 
inhaled the exhilarating air of the one, or basked in 
the golden sunlight of the other, must see that Du- 
luth must be a place of untold delights, a terrestrial 
paradise, fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an eternal 
spring, clothed in the gorgeous sheen of ever-bloom- 
flowers, and vocal with the silvery melody of nature's 
choicest songsters. 



The Idea of Deity. 

Christian teachers have with one voice proclaimed 
the doctrine of a hidden god. From all ages and 
from all climes comes this confession, and in every 
phase of condition from barbarism to the highest 
civilization we see all sorts of men building altars to 
the unknown and unknowable God. 

Every seeker brings back the same unvarying re- 
port. Science scales all heights and sounds all abyss- 
es, counts the stars, turns over the granite leaves of 
the globe's history, bathes in the light of the morn- 
ing and broods amid the shadows of the evening, 
and comes back from ocean caverns and mountain 
peaks, from beds of fossils, and from the silvery 
pavement of the milky way with the same unvarying 
message: "There are foot-prints, but he that made 
them cannot be found." 

The heart sends out over the waste of waters the 
dove of its tender feelings, but the wearied wing 
finds no resting-place on the bounding billow. The 
timid bird hurries back to its home bearing in its 
mouth no message but an olive-branch, the symbol 
of peace. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 97 

With sturdy resolution conscience goes forth to 
sound the dim and perilous way. But the scent is 
lost amid the jungles and rocky passes of the world. 
Terrified by the glare of the tiger, the spring of the 
leopard, the coil of the serpent, the sting of the rep- 
tile, horror-stricken by triumphant iniquity and 
bleeding equity, shocked at seeing a Tiberius on the 
throne and a Jesus on the cross, Nero an emperor 
and Epictetus a slave, it loses the thread of the mor- 
al law, and recoils from problems it cannot confront. 
With the lamp of duty pressed faithfully against its 
bosom, it stands with bended head and waits. 

Boldest of all, the soul plumes her wings of faith 
for a flight to the very empyrean itself. Her pinions 
of aspiration bear her above the earth, she distances 
vision, outruns the calculations of the mathemati- 
cian, leaves time and space behind, and with open 
eye looks steadily at the sun. But the sun itself is a 
shadow. Light there is a shoreless ocean of light, 
atmospheres glowing with its radiance, throbbing 
with its gracious undulations; on its waves she floats 
serenely; in its silence she rests at peace. 

But no voice breaks the silence, no form of created 
godhead walks on the sea of glory. The soul must 
be content to find a home as wide as infinite thought, 
as warm as eternal love, but never to see the fashion 
of it, never to find the soft bosom of the mother in 
whose breast it can nestle. She dwells in a castle of 
air built by the vapors exhaled from tears, and made 
gorgeous by the upward-slanting light of her hope. 



The New Political Era. — Henry George. 

A new political era has begun and a new party has 

7 



98 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

been born that is destined to write itself deep into 
the institutions and laws of this republic, and to em- 
phasize in tones of thunder the eternal principles 
enunciated by the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence. There is in this sublime movement some- 
thing deeper, something wider, something nobler and 
higher than we are accustomed to associate with po- 
litical movements. We are not striving to put men 
in office; far from it, we are striving to abolish that 
curse of this beautiful world, poverty. We are strug- 
gling to make the American republic a republic in 
truth as in name; a republic not of governed and 
governors, not of millionaires and tramps, not of the 
idle class and the working class, but a republic of 
free and independent citizens, equal in opportunities, 
equal in political rights, and carrying in their own 
hands their own destiny. We are striving for a re- 
public where there shall be work for all, leisure for 
all, comfort for all, and abundance for all. We want 
a republic in which no child shall ever go hungry, in 
which no woman shall ever want for bread or ever 
bend herself to unseemly toil. We are striving for a 
republic wherein the poorest may have every oppor- 
tunity for the development of every faculty, for at- 
taining that destiny which the Creator has given us 
the chance of securing in the natural laws which he 
has made for the government of this bounteous world 
and of those human children which he brings into it. 
No matter how hard the work may be, no matter how 
hopeless at times it may have seemed, it is yet the 
highest privilege for any man to engage in this work. 
We battle not for ourselves, but for the myriads of 
children that are to come after us. 

Eyes are turned to us, not only from every part of 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 99 

the American Union, but from every part of the civ- 
ilized world, where men are struggling for the rights 
of man, are striving for a higher, better, purer social 
condition. Their hearts will be with us, and our vic- 
tory will be their triumph. 



The New South. — Heney W. Grady. — No. 1. 

In speaking to the toast with which you have hon- 
ored me I accept the term "The New South" as in 
no sense disparaging the old. Dear to me, sir, are the 
home of my people and the traditions of my people. 
There is a New South not through any protest against 
the old, but because of new conditions, new adjust- 
ments, and, if you please, new ideas and new aspira- 
tions. 

I ask you, gentlemen, to picture if you can the 
foot-sore soldier, buttoning up in his faded gray 
jacket the parole which is to be the testimony of his 
fidelity and faith, as he turned his face southward 
from Appomattox. Think of him as, ragged, half- 
starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds; 
think of him as, having fought to exhaustion, he sur- 
renders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades, 
and casts his tear-stained and pallid face for the last 
time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills; 
think of him as he pulls his gray cap over his brow, 
and begins his slow and painful journey. What does 
he find, let me ask you who went to your homes ea- 
ger to find all the welcome you had justly earned, full 
pa}^ment for four years' sacrifice, what does he find 
when he reaches the home he left four years before? 
He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, 
his slaves freed, his stock killed, his barns empty, his 



100 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social sys- 
tem, feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his people 
without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and 
the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. 
Crushed by defeat, he sees his very traditions swept 
away. There he moves without money, credit, em- 
ployment, material, or training, and more than this, 
confronted with the gravest problem that ever met 
human intelligence: the establishing of a status for 
the vast body of his liberated slaves. 

What does he do, this hero in gray with a heart of 
gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? 
Not for a single day. Surely God, who had scourged 
him in his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. 
As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was 
there a swifter restoration. The soldier stepped from 
the trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged 
Federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that 
ran red with human blood in April were green with 
the harvest in June. Women reared in the very lap 
of luxury cut up their dresses to make clothing for 
their husbands, and gave their hands to work with a 
patience and heroism that fit women always as a gar- 
ment. From the ashes of 1864 we have raised a brave 
and beautiful city; and somehow or other we have 
caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our 
homes, and have builded not one single ignoble prej- 
udice or memory. 

We have established thrift in city and country, 
and we have fallen in love with work. We have re- 
stored comfort to homes from which culture and ele- 
gance have never departed. We have let economy 
take root and spread among us as rank as the crab- 
grass which sprung from Sherman's cavalry camp. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 101 

Above all, we know that we have achieved in these 
"piping times of peace" a fuller independence for 
the South than that which our fathers sought to win 
in the forum by their eloquence, or compel on the 
field by their swords. 

It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, howev- 
er humble, in this glorious work. Never was nobler 
duty confided to human hands than the uplifting and 
inspiring of the prostrate and bleeding South, mis- 
guided perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, and 
honest, brave, generous always. In the record of her 
social, industrial, and political restoration we await 
with confidence the verdict of the world. 



A DISCLAIMER OF INJUSTICE TO THE NEGRO. — HENRY 

W. Grady. 
I assert here — and a bar as intelligent and upright 
as the bar of Massachusetts will solemnly indorse my 
assertion — that in the Southern courts, from the high- 
est to the lowest, pleading for life, liberty, and prop- 
erty, the negro has distinct advantage because he is 
a negro, apt to be overreached and oppressed, and 
that this advantage reaches from the juror in making 
his verdict to the judge in measuring his sentence. 
How can it be seriously maintained that we are ter- 
rorizing the people from whose willing hands come 
every year one billion of farm products, or that we 
have robbed a people who twenty -five years from 
unrewarded slavery have in one State amassed twen- 
ty millions of property? Do we intend to oppress 
the people we are arming every day? or are we 
striving to deceive them when we are educating them 



102 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

to the utmost limit of our ability? Can it be be- 
lieved that we outlaw them when we daily work with 
them side by side? Does any one dream that we 
would re-enslave them under legal forms when for 
their benefit we have even imprudently narrowed the 
limit of felonies and mitigated the severity of law? 
My fellow-countrymen, as you yourselves may some- 
times have to appeal to the bar of human judgment for 
justice and for right, give to my people the fair and 
unanswerable conclusion of these incontestible facts. 
But it is claimed that under this fair seeming there 
is disorder and violence. This I admit. And there 
will be disorder until there is one ideal community 
on earth after which we may pattern. But how 
widely it is misjudged! It is hard to measure with 
exactness whatever touches the negro. His helpless- 
ness, his isolation, his century of servitude — these 
dispose us to emphasize and magnify his wrongs. 
This disposition, inflamed by prejudice and partisan- 
ry, has led to injustice and delusion. Lawless men 
may ravage a county in Iowa, and it is accepted as an 
incident; but in the South a drunken row is declared 
to be the fixed habit of a community. Kegulators 
may whip vagabonds in Indiana by platoons, and it 
scarcely arrests attention; but a chance collision in 
the South between relatively the same classes is 
gravely accepted as evidence that one race is destroy- 
ing the other. I am not one of those who becloud 
American honor with the parade of the outrages of 
either section, and belie American character by de- 
claring them to be significant and representative. I 
prefer to maintain that they are neither, and stand 
for nothing but the passion and sin of our fallen hu- 
manity. These gentlemen who come with me here, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 103 

knit into Georgia's busy life, never saw, I dare assert, 
an outrage committed on a negro. And if they did, 
not one of you would be swifter to protect or to pun- 
ish. It is through them and the men who think with 
them that these two races have been carried thus far 
with less of violence than would have been possible 
anywhere else on earth. And in their fairness and 
courage and steadfastness, more than in all the laws 
that can be passed or all the bayonets that can be 
mustered, is the hope of the future to our loved and 
generous South. I stand here to profess no new loy- 
alty. When General Lee, whose heart was the tem- 
ple of our hopes, and whose arm was clothed with 
our strength, renewed his allegiance to the govern- 
ment at Appomattox, he spoke from a heart too great 
to be false, and he spoke for every honest man from 
Maine to Texas. From that day to this Hamilcar 
has nowhere in the South sworn young Hannibal to 
hatred and revenge, but everywhere to loyalty and to 
love. In proof of this, bear witness to the soldier 
standing at the base of a Confederate monument, 
over the remains of his dead comrades, his empty 
sleeve tossing in the April wind, adjuring the young 
men about him to serve as honest and loyal citizens 
the government against which their fathers fought. 
This message, delivered from that sacred presence, 
has gone home to the hearts of my fellows. And I 
declare here, if physical courage be always equal to 
human aspiration, they would die, if need be, to re- 
store this republic their fathers fought to dissolve. 



Dr. Deems at Hopkinsville Monument. 
The thunder and lightning of the Civil War in the 



104 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

United States attracted the attention of trie civilized 
world. Men everywhere have been studying that 
great conflict, and they feel that we have proved our- 
selves capable of being the beginning of the con- 
federation of man. We have made it possible for 
Englishmen everywhere to agitate and discuss the 
question of a federation of those States which have 
gradually been forming under the aegis of Great 
Britain. We can begin to hope that following such 
imperial British legislation some day, it may be a far 
day, the world will behold the United States of Eu- 
rope, of Asia, of Africa, and then, when there is a 
United States on every continent, will come the day 
of all days, the day when, in some splendid metropo- 
lis of the earth, shall be opened the first session of 
the " Parliament of Man." 

To that august consummation the greatest contri- 
bution ever since the world began came from the two 
opposing armies of our civil war. And as houses, 
cities, States, institutions of all kinds among men 
have owed more to those whose names have been lost 
than to those whose names have been preserved, 
so to the unknown Federal and Confederate dead the 
world is a greater debtor than to Grant and Sherman 
and Meade, or to Lee and Jackson and Johnston. 

And you, my silent brothers, sleeping unnamed in 
the quiet tomb under this noble monument, you 
fought a good fight for something much more pre- 
cious than any treasured thought of yours, and as sa- 
cred as your altars and your fires. You fought for 
all the altars worth erecting anywhere, and for all 
the fires worth kindling in any age; you fought for 
that which makes the mortal life of man a worthy 
vestibule to human immortality. And he who caused 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 105 

this beautiful monument to rise on this fair spot, it 
seems to me, "builded better than he knew." He 
has expressed his own manly sense of manliness and 
gallant sense of gallantry, and has said that the 
names of heroes may become unknown, but heroism 
shall not go unacknowledged among men. He has 
done more. In days to come, when he and you and 
I shall be in the camps where these departed soldiers 
have pitched their tents, groups of boys shall stand 
before this monument and study its proportions, and 
read its eloquent inscription, and ponder its meaning, 
and shall gather from their older friends its deeper 
lessons. As they learn that men were ready to leave 
venerable fathers and mothers, beautiful sisters and 
sweethearts, dearest children and wives, to abandon 
trades and fields, to forsake the paths of social dal- 
liance and delight, and to endure the hardships of 
camps and hospitals and battle-fields, and to die at 
last, not only unsung, but unnamed; and to do all 
this because fair liberty is so beautiful and sweet — 
when they learn this these boys will grow into men 
not unworthy to be the successors of the blessed 
dead. 

This ought to be a glorious day to us. We have 
lived to see the animosities of the war die out, to wit- 
ness famous generals of both armies marching side 
by side in the procession of peace, to behold the 
great captains, once opposed, now bending side by 
side, and placing chaplets of mourning upon the sods 
above the blue and gray. 

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, 
and the blood of the patriot is the seed of the State. 
Cold though those blood-seed lie, through winter 
long and drear, they do not wholly die. They spring 



106 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

again to make the land rich and beautiful with flow- 
ers and fruits. 

Southekn Love foe the Negeo. — Heney W. Geady. 

The love we feel for that race you cannot measure 
or comprehend. As I attest it here, the spirit of my 
old black mammy from her home up there looks 
down to bless, and through the tumult of this night 
the sweet music of her croonings steals as thirty 
years ago she held me in her black arms and led me 
smiling into sleep. This scene vanishes as I speak, 
and I catch a vision of an old Southern home, with 
its lofty pillars, and its white pigeons fluttering down 
through the golden air. I see women with strained 
and anxious faces, and children alert yet helpless. I 
see night come down with its dangers and its appre- 
hensions, and in a big, homely room I feel on my 
tired head the touch of loving hands, now worn and 
wrinkled, yet fairer to me than hands of mortal 
woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands 
of mortal man, as they lay a mother's blessing there 
while at her knees, the truest altar I yet have found, 
I thank God she is safe in her sanctuary, because her 
slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin or guard at her 
chamber door, put a black man's loyalty between her 
and danger. 

I catch another vision. The crisis of battle, a sol- 
dier struck, staggering, has fallen. I see a slave 
scuffling through the smoke, winding his black arms 
about the fallen form, reckless of the hurtling death, 
bending his trusty face to catch the words that trem- 
ble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with 
agony that he would lay down his life in his master's 
stead. I see him by the weary bedside ministering 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 107 

with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his 
humble heart that God will lift his master up, until 
death comes in mercy and in honor to still the sol- 
dier's agony and seal the soldier's life. I see him by 
the open grave, mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering 
for the death of him who in life fought against his 
freedom. I see him when the mound is heaped, and 
the great drama of life is closed, turn away, and with 
downcast eyes and uncertain step start out into new 
and strange fields, faltering, struggling, but moving 
on until his shambling figure is lost in the light of 
this brighter and better day. And a voice comes 
from the grave saying: " Follow him. Put your arms 
about him in his need, even as he put his about me. 
Be his friend as he was mine." And out into this 
new world, strange to me as to him, dazzling, bewil- 
dering both, I follow. And may God forget my peo- 
ple when they forget these! 

Whatever the future may hold for them — whether 
they plod along in the servitude from which they 
have never been lifted since the Cyrenian was laid 
hold upon by the Roman soldiers and made to bear 
the cross of the fainting Christ; whether they find 
homes again in Africa, and thus hasten the prophecy 
of the Psalmist; whether, forever dislocated and sep- 
arated, they remain a weak people beset by a strong- 
er, and exist as the Turk, who lives in the jealousy 
and not in the conscience of Europe; or whether in 
this miraculous republic they break through the 
caste of twenty centuries 'and, belying universal his- 
tory, reach the full stature of citizenship, and in 
peace maintain it — we shall give them uttermost jus- 
tice and abiding friendship. And whatever we do, 
into whatever seeming estrangement we may be driv- 



108 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

en, nothing shall disturb the love we bear this repub- 
lic, or mitigate our consecration to its service. 



What Is Minority? 

What is minority? The chosen heroes of this 
earth have been in a minority. There is not a so- 
cial, political, or religious privilege that we enjoy to- 
day that was not bought for us by the blood and 
tears and patient suffering of the minority. It is a 
minority that have vindicated humanity in every 
struggle. It is the minority that have stood in the van 
of every moral conflict, and achieved all that is noble 
and good in the history of the world. You will find 
that each generation has been always busy in gather- 
ing up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes of 
the past, to deposit them in the golden urn of a na- 
tion's history. Look at Scotland, where they are 
erecting monuments — to whom? To the Covenant- 
ers. Ah ! yes, they were in a minority. But read their 
history, if you can, without the blood tingling to the 
very tips of your fingers. These were the minority 
that through blood and tears and hootings and scourg- 
ings, dyeing the waters with their blood and staining 
the heather with their gore, fought the glorious bat- 
tles of religious freedom. 

If a man stand up for the right, though the right 
be on the scaffold, while wrong sits in the seat of gov- 
ernment; if he stand for the truth, though he eat 
with truth a wretched crust; if he walk in obloquy 
and scorn through the by-ways while falsehood ruf- 
fles itself in silken attire, let him remember that 
wherever truth and right are there are "troops of 
tall and beautiful angels" gathered around him, and 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 109 

God himself stands within the dim future and keeps 
watch over his own. If a man stands for the right, 
though every man's finger be pointed at him, and 
though every woman's lips be curled in scorn, he 
walks with a vast and glorious majority. The minor- 
ities that have piloted the stupendous reforms of 
modern times were once as the little cloud, small as 
the human hand, low down on the horizon's verge. 
But, ah! the cloud so small tossed and rolled and 
grew and swept onward until it covered the firma- 
ment of the social and political world; and in the cy- 
clone that burst upon the startled multitude useless 
traditions, false theories, profitless speculations, dead 
customs, threadbare creeds were swallowed up and 
swept out forever from the gaze of the world. Out 
of this tremendous upheaval the right and true have 
risen to glorious pre-eminence, and their banners 
fl-oat high over the rush and smoke of the conflict 
with falsehood and wrong. 

Yes, the minority have often been despised and 
scorned and ridiculed, but that omnipotent God who 
sent them into the world to champion the right and 
the true has borne them up until their noble cause 
has been vindicated and intrenched in the hearts of 
millions; and though they may not have lived to wit- 
ness the glad fruition of their labors and sacrifices, 
later times have zealously and lovingly commemorat- 
ed them in monuments of marble and bronze. Then, 
my friends, let us take heart and be brave; for if, 
though in the minority, down deep in the inner re- 
cesses of our souls we feel that we are right, then the 
right and our own fearless selves under the overrul- 
ing providence of God must prevail. 



110 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

The Confederate Dead. — Col. John F. House. 

The graves where the glorious heroes of the lost 
cause are sleeping are very humble. No government 
pours out its wealth to gather their dust into magnifi- 
cent cemeteries, adorned with all that taste and art can 
contribute to beautify those cities of the dead. In the 
deep bosom of the wild wood, where human footsteps 
have rarely trod, many of them sleep the last sleep, with 
only nature and solitude as companions of their dream- 
less rest. 

The birds of the forest sing their morning and even- 
ing hymns above their unrecorded graves. No an- 
cestral oak shall ever throw its welcome shadow over 
their heroic dust, and no monumental marble sentinel 
the undiscovered spot where their ashes repose. 

But they have monuments in hearts that are warmer 
than marble, and homes in memories that will never 
cast them out. Dearer to me their hallowed dust than 
the golden sands of all California. No amount of 
detraction can shake my faith in their integrity, and 
no temptation of power can ever make me false to the 
traditions of their history. 

I know they are stigmatized as traitors, but this 
hand will never consent to write such a name upon 
such a grave. My heart must be as cold as death can 
make it before it will cease to warm at the mention 
of their names or to cherish the memorials of their 
virtue. 

Thank God, this privilege is still left us. Even the 
ingenuity of hate has never yet invented a process by 
which the human heart can be entered and robbed of 
its treasures. 

No spy can bring reports from this enchanted land, 
no detective explore this unknown region, no rude 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. Ill 

soldiery put the forms of beauty that people it in ar- 
rest, and no court-martial pronounce its bloody de- 
crees against them, for this is hallowed ground where 
no tyrant's foot ever trod. Cruelty and oppression, 
and all the dark cohorts which the human passion 
rallies to carry out its orders, stand baffled and pow- 
erless outside its walls; for the angels of God mount 
guard upon its parapets, and their naming swords turn 
everywhere to guard this citadel of the soul. 

To characterize that prolonged and terrific struggle 
as a mere riot or a mob, and assume that every man en- 
gaged in it was a conscious traitor, unworthy of trust 
and devoid of honor, is to trine with truth and insult 
the common understanding of mankind. Reason re- 
jects such a view of the subject as an absurdity, jus- 
tice brands it as a falsehood, and the muse of history 
will scorn to transfer it to her immortal page. 

Questions that rallied millions of us intelligent men 
as the American masses to the battle-field for their 
solution, must have had, did have two sides to them. 
And we dare assert that in purity of motive, in stain- 
less honor, in dauntless courage, and in lofty devotion 
to principle, the men who bore arms in the lost cause 
are the peers of the proudest that ever marched 
under any banner or illustrated the annals of any 
land. 

The Same Concluded. 

Upon the floor in the United States Senate, an 
honorable member who had the courage to speak a few 
words for this much-slandered people challenged our 
maligners to point to a single instance where a Con- 
federate soldier had violated his parole since the sur- 
render. The challenge was not accepted, and will 
never be. The history of the world might safely be 



112 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

defied to produce from among its ruddering records 
an instance parallel to the high-toned and chivalrous 
manner in which the Confederate soldier, in the midst 
of provoking irritations, has kept his plighted honor 
inviolate. 

After the bitterness of defeat and the humiliation 
of failure, why should any one wish to rob us of the 
poor privilege of believing we are not disgraced? But 
let us suffer and be strong. This is a privilege which 
can neither be given nor taken away. They cannot 
build a dungeon to imprison the soul, or forge man- 
acles to confine the mind. 

Thought, like the winged lightning or the wayward 
tempest, scorns all the puny efforts of man to fetter 
or subdue it. 

Shall the mother be forbidden to mourn the loss of 
her gallant boy without first confessing that he fills a 
traitor's grave? No human law can force that mother 
to associate with his memory a traitor's shame. She 
knows he was noble, brave, and true, and when the 
last trumpet sounds she will rise from the grave with 
that opinion. 

Shall the father be stigmatized as " disloyal," and 
stripped of all the attributes of a freeman because his 
heart beats with a quickened pulsation at the recital 
of the heroic part his manly son bore in the bloody 
scenes of Chickamauga? If so, he will die a " disloy- 
al" man. 

If it be necessary to tear from his heart all feelings 
of parental pride and affection before he can become 
" loyal," he will never be able to reach that extraordi- 
nary state of political perfection. Ah no! 

They'll tell their names in storied song, 
Those men of Chickamauga fight ; 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 113 

And on the moss-grown cottage wall 

Will hang their pictures brave and bright. 

Shall the maiden be required to turn a deaf ear to 
the voice of her lover because that voice once shouted 
in the charge of Forrest's invincible battalions. If so, 
the rose of loyalty will never bloom upon her cheek. 

Shall our fair country-women be denounced as re- 
bellious because they strew the earliest and sweetest 
flowers of spring upon the graves of our dead? Was 
she true to the claims of patriotism who, when a fair, 
young soldier-boy lay dead far away from his home, 
bent above his bier, and with angelic sweetness said: 
" Let me kiss him for his mother? " 

It is not treason — and he is a fool who thinks so — 
to indulge a natural feeling of pride in the achieve- 
ments of our arms, respect for the men who led us, 
and veneration for those who fell. Hard, hard indeed 
is the fate of those who fell in the lost cause if their 
surviving comrades are forbidden the melancholy 
pleasure of dropping a tear upon their graves. 

When reason shall mount her throne, when a preju- 
dice that is both deaf and blind shall cease to rule the 
hour, justice will be done the motives of these men. 

Appealing from the passions of the present to the 
more impartial judgment of posterity, let us submit 
their deeds and the cause in which they fell to the 
arbitrament of history. 

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves ; 

Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause ; 
Though yet no marble column craves 

The pilgrim here to pause. 
In seeds of laurel in the earth 

The garlands of your fame are sown, 
And somewhere, waiting for its birth, 

The shaft is in the stone. 
8 



114 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Adams and Jefferson. — Wirt. 

In the structure of their characters, in the course of 
their action, in the striking coincidences that marked 
their high career, there is a moral sublimity which 
overwhelms the mind and hushes all its powers into 
silent amazement. The European who should have 
heard the sound without apprehending the cause 
would be apt to inquire: " What is the meaning of all 
this? What have these men done to elicit this unani- 
mous and splendid acclamation? Why has the whole 
American nation risen up as one man to do them 
honor, and offer to them this enthusiastic homage 
of the heart? Were they mighty warriors? and was 
the peal we have heard the shout of victory? Were 
they great commanders, returning from their distant 
conquests, surrounded with the spoils of war? and was 
this the sound of their triumphant procession? Were 
they covered with martial glory in any form ? and was 
this the noisy wave of the multitude rolling back at 
their approach ? " 

Nothing of all this. No; they were peaceful and 
aged patriots who, having served their country togeth- 
er through their long and useful lives, had now sunk 
together to the tomb. They had not fought battles, 
but they had formed and moved the great machinery 
of which battles were only a small and comparative- 
ly trivial consequence; they had not commanded ar- 
mies, but they had commanded the master springs of 
the nation, on which all its great political and military 
movements depend. 

By the wisdom and energy of their counsels, by the 
potent mastery of their spirits, they had contributed 
pre-eminently to produce a mighty revolution which 
has changed the aspect of the world; a revolution 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 115 

which in one-half of the world has already restored 
man to his long lost liberty, and the government to 
its only legitimate object — the happiness of the peo- 
ple — and on the other hemisphere has thrown a light 
so strong that even the darkness of despotism is be- 
ginning to recede. Compared with the solid glory of 
an achievement like this, what are battles and what 
the pomp of war but the poor and fleeting pageants 
of the theater? What was the selfish and petty am- 
bition of Alexander to conquer a little section of a 
savage world compared with this magnificent advance 
toward the emancipation of an entire race? 

And this, be it remembered, has been the fruit of 
intellectual exertion, the triumph of mind. What 
a proud testimonial does it bear to the character of 
our nation that it is able to make a proper estimate of 
services like these; that while in other countries the 
senseless mob fall down in stupid admiration before 
the bloody wheels of the conqueror, in this our peo- 
ple rise with one accord to pay their homage to intel- 
lect and virtue! What a cheering pledge does it give 
of the stability of our institutions that while abroad 
the benighted multitude are prostrating themselves 
before the idols which their own hands have fashioned 
into kings here, in this land of the free, our people 
are everywhere starting up with one impulse to fol- 
low with their acclamations the ascending spirits of 
the great fathers of the republic! This is a spectacle 
of which we may be permitted to be proud. It honors 
our country no less than the illustrious dead; and 
could these great patriots speak to us, they would tell 
us that they have more pleasure in the testimony 
which these honors bear to the character of their 
country than in that which they bear to their individ- 



116 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

ual services. They now see as they were seen while 
in the body, and know the nature of the feeling from 
which these honors flow. It is love for love. It is 
the gratitude of an enlightened nation to the noblest 
order of benefactors. It is the only glory worth the 
aspiration of a generous spirit. Who would not pre- 
fer this living tomb in the hearts of his countrymen 
to the proudest mausoleum that the genius of sculpt- 
ure could erect? 

Jefferson and Adams were great men by nature — 
not great and eccentric minds " shot madly from their 
spheres" to fright the world and scatter pestilence in 
their course; but strong and steady lights, restrained 
within their proper orbits by the happy poise of their 
characters, they came to cheer and gladden a world that 
had been buried for ages in political night. They 
were Heaven-called avengers of degraded man. They 
came to lift him to the station for which God had 
formed him, and to put to flight those idiotic super- 
stitions with which tyrants had contrived to enthrall 
his reason and his liberty. And that Being who sent 
them on this mission had fitted them pre-eminently 
for his glorious work. He filled their hearts with a 
love of country which burned strong within them, even 
in death. He gave them a power of understanding 
which no sophistry could baffle, no art elude; and a 
moral heroism which no dangers could appall. Care- 
less of themselves, reckless of all personal conse- 
quences, trampling under foot the petty ambition of 
office and honor, which constitutes the master passion 
of little minds, they bent all their mighty powers to 
the task for which they had been delegated— the free- 
dom of their beloved country and the restoration of 
fallen man. They felt that they were apostles of hu- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 117 

man liberty, and well did they fulfill their high com- 
mission. They rested not until th ey had accomplished 
their work at home and given such an impulse to the 
great ocean of mind that they saw the waves rolling 
on the farthest shore before they were called to their 
reward, and then left the world hand in hand, exult- 
ing as they rose. 

Dying Speech of Makino Faliero. {Adapted.) 
I speak to time and to eternity, of which I grow a 
part, and not to man. Ye elements in which to be 
resolved I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit upon 
you. Ye blue waves which laved my banner, ye winds 
that fluttered over it as if you loved it, and filled my 
swelling sails as they were wafted to many a triumph, 
bear witness to the curse I heap on this doomed city! 
And thou, my native earth which I havp bled for, and 
that foreign earth which drank this willing blood from 
many a wound; ye stones in which my gore will not 
sink, but reek up to heaven ; ye skies which will receive 
it; thou sun which shinest on these things, and Thou 
who kindleth and quencheth suns, attest the hate I 
bear this base and loathsome senate! 

I am not innocent; but are these guiltless? If I 
perish, I shall not perish unavenged. Far ages float 
up from the abyss of time to be, and show these eyes, 
before they close, the doom of this proud city, and I 
leave my curse on her and hers forever. Yes! the 
hours are silently engendering that accursed day when 
she who built against Attila a bulwark shall blood- 
lessly and basely yield unto a bastard Attila, without 
shedding so much blood, in her last defense, as those 
old veins oft drained in shielding her. She shall be 
bought and sold, and be an appanage to those who 



118 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

shall despise her! She shall stoop and be a province 
for an empire, a petty town in lieu of a capital, with 
slaves for a senate, beggars for nobles, and panders 
for a people! Then, when the Hebrew is in thy pal- 
aces, when the Hun is in thy high places, and when 
the Greek walks over thy mart and smiles on it for 
his ; when thy patricians beg their bitter bread in nar- 
row streets, and in their shameful need make their 
nobility a plea for pity — then may they cry in vain 
from the hell of their desolation, and feel the scor- 
pions of want and hunger sting every nerve and fiber 
of their being till the very marrow shall dry and rat- 
tle in their bones! When all the ills of conquered 
states shall cling to them, vice without splendor, 
smiles without mirth, and pastimes without pleasure; 
youth without honor, and age without respect; when 
meanness and meekness and a sense of woe have made 
thee last and worst of peopled deserts, then in the last 
gasp of thine agony, amid the slime and mold and 
rot that like a deadening stench shall reek from thy 
wasting homes and palaces; then, amidst thy many 
thousand murders, think of mine! 

Thou den of drunkards, crazed with the blood of 
princes ! thou sea of Sodom ! thou beastly, shameless 
Gomorrah! May wreck and ruin and the death of all 
that makes thy heart glad pour upon you a never 
ending night of gloom! May thy viperous fangs at 
last turn upon thine own living carcass, and set thy 
veins on fire with a venom that is fatal as the asp! 

May the owl flap his ominous wings within thy 
halls and portals! and may lizards and snails crawl 
upon the couches where once reposed thy princes and 
thy princesses! May thy patrician palaces at last 
crumble under the hideous canker of decay! and in 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 119 

their heaps of ruins may thy beggared populace find 
their only habitation! And then, to fill the cup of thy 
last extremity with all the woes that can fall upon an 
accursed people, may pestilence and contagion, those 
twin calamities of the human race, stalk through the 
silent streets and deserted by-ways, and fill the air of 
this doomed city with such a poison that rot, ruin, 
and annihilation shall sit enthroned above all thy des- 
olate walls! And day by day the burning sun shall 
mock thy grief, and the pitiless stars of night shall 
hurry past and shudder at the retribution of thy pride 
and crimes! Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods, 
thee and thy serpent seed forever! 



Tribute to Jefferson Davis. — John W. Daniels. 
We cannot see the movement of the hand on the dial; 
but it does move nevertheless, and so surely as it keeps 
pace with the circling sun' so surely will the hour come 
when the misunderstandings of the past will be rec- 
onciled, and its clamors die away ; and then it will be 
recognized by all the world that Jefferson Davis was 
more than the representative of a section, more than 
the intelligent guide of a revolution, more than the 
champion ot secession. He will stand revealed as a 
political philosopher, to be numbered among the 
great expounders of American principles and the 
great heroes and champions of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
"When the turbid streams of war have become clear 
and flow evenly in their channels, it will be seen that, 
underneath the hostile currents which impelled two 
great peoples in collision, there was a unity of senti- 
ment which, operating from different poles of circum- 
stances and interest, threw into separate masses those 



120 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

who by natural instinct would have cohered together. 
And in this separation it was fortunate for the 
South, for America, for humanity, that at the head of 
the South was a true type of its honor, character, and 
history — a man whose clear rectitude preserved every 
complication from impeachment of bad faith; a pa- 
triot whose love of law and liberty was paramount to 
all expediency; a commander whose moderation and 
firmness could restrain, and whose lofty passion and 
courage could inspire. At the same time we behold 
a publicist whose intellectual attainments have made 
him the peer of any statesman who has championed the 
rights of commonwealths in debate, or stood at the 
helm when the ship of state encountered the tempest 
of civil comotion. 

But he is gone! All are gone, and forever gone! 
The Confederacy and its sons in gray have vanished; 
and at last, hoary with years, the chieftain rests, 
his body mingling with the ashes of the brave which 
once quickened with a country's holy passion. 

Hither let his body be borne by the old soldiers of 
the Confederacy ! In gloriuos Eichmond by the James, 
where his war home was, where his child is buried, 
where his armies were marshaled, where the Congress 
sat, where was the capitol, the arsenal, the citadel, the 
field of glory, and at last the tomb of the Confederacy 
— there let him be buried, and the land of Washington 
and Lee and Jackson will hold in sacred trust his 
memory and his ashes! 

The restless tide of humanity will rush hither and 
thither over the land of battles. The ages will sweep 
on, and 

Rift the hills, roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the 
sun. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 121 

The white sails of commerce will thicken on your riv- 
er, and the smoke of increasing factories blacken your 
skies. Mountains will pour forth the precious metals, 
and fields will glow in the garniture of richer harvests. 
The remnants of lives spared from the battle will be 
interwoven with the texture of the Union; new stars 
will cluster upon the flag, and the sons of the South 
will bear it as their fathers bore it to make the bounds 
of freedom wider yet. Our great race will meet and 
solve every problem, however dark, that it now faces, 
and a people reconciled and mighty will stretch forth 
their arms to stay the oppressor. But no greater souls 
will rise than those who find rest under the Southern 
sod, from Sumter's battered wall to the trailing vines 
and ivy leaves of Hollywood, and none will come forth 
of truer heart or cleaner hands or higher crest to lead 
them. 

To the dust we gave his body; but the ages will re- 
ceive his memory. They have never failed to do jus- 
tice to him who stood by his people and made their 
cause his own. And we but forecast the judgment of 
the years to come when we pronounce that Jefferson 
Davis was great and pure as statesman, man, and pa- 
triot. 

In the eyes of Him to whom a thousand years are 
as a watch in the night, the war and the century in 
which it came are but as a single heart-throb in the 
breast of time; and when the myriads of this great 
land shall look back through unclouded skies to the 
old heroic days the smoke and the stain of the battle 
will have vanished from the hero's name. The tall 
chieftain of the men who wore the gray will stand be- 
fore them " with a countenance like the lightning, and 
in raiment as white as snow." 



122 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

The Employment of Indians against Ameri- 
cans. — Lord Chatham. 

I am astonished, I am shocked to hear such princi- 
ples confessed: to hear them avowed in this house, or 
even in this country. I did not intend to have en- 
croached again on your attention, but I cannot repress 
my indignation. I feel myself impelled to speak. 
My lords, we are called upon as members of this 
house, as Christians, to protest against such horrible 
barbarity. " That God and nature put into our hands." 
What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may 
entertain I know not; but I do know that such detest- 
able principles are equally abhorrent to religion and 
humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of 
God and nature to the massacres of the Indian's 
scalping-knife; to the cannibal savages, torturing, 
murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of their 
mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept 
of morality, every feeling of humanity, every senti- 
ment of honor. These abominable principles, and 
this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most 
decisive indignation. I call upon that reverend and 
this most learned bench to vindicate the religion of 
their God, to support the justice of their country. I 
call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanc- 
tity of their lawn, upon the judges to interpose the 
purity of the ermine to save us from such pollution. 
I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence 
the dignity of your ancestors, r,nd to maintain your 
own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my coun- 
try to invoke the genius of the Constitution. From 
the tapestry that adorns these walls the immortal 
ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at 
the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 123 

the liberty and establish the religion of Britain, if 
these worse than savage cruelties and inquisitorial 
practices are endured among us. 

To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for 
blood, and against whom ? Your Protestant brethren ! 
To lay waste their country, to desolate their dwell- 
ings, to extirpate their race and name, by the aid and 
instrumentality of these horrible hell-hounds of war! 

Spain can no longer boast pre-eminence in barbar- 
ity. She armed herself with blood-hounds to extir- 
pate the wretched natives of Mexico; but we, more 
ruthless, loose the dogs of war against our country- 
men in America, endeared to us by every tie which 
should sanctify humanity. My lords, I solemnly call 
upon your lordships, and upon every order of men in 
the State, to stamp upon this infamous procedure the 
indelible stigma of public abhorrence. More partic- 
ularly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to 
do away with this iniquity; let them perform a lustra- 
tion to purify their country from this deep and deadly 
sin. My lords, I am old and weak and unable to say 
more, but my feelings and indignation were too strong 
to say less. I could not have slept this night in my 
bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving 
this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous 
and preposterous principles. 



Lord Chatham on His Motion to Amend the Ad- 
dress to the Throne. 
It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the 
language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the 
delusion and darkness which envelop it, and display 



124 THE PEARL SPEAKER. . 

in its full danger and genuine colors the ruin which 
is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume 
to expect support in their infatuation? Can Parlia- 
ment be so dead to its dignity and duty as to give 
its support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon 
them — measures, my lords, which have reduced this 
late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? But 
yesterday, "and England might have stood against 
the world; now, none so poor to do her reverence." 
The people whom we first despised as rebels, bat 
whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted 
against you, supplied with every military store, their 
interests consulted, and their embassadors entertained 
by your inveterate enemy: and our ministers do not, 
and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The 
desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. 
No man more highly esteems and honors the English 
troops than I do. I know their virtue and their valor; 
I know they can achieve any thing except impossibili- 
ties, and I know the conquest of English America is 
an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot 
conquer America. What is your present situation 
there? We do not know the worst, but we do know 
that in. three campaigns we have done nothing and 
suffered much. You may swell every expense, and 
strain every effort, and accumulate every assistance, 
and extend your traffic to the shambles of every Ger- 
man despot; your attempts forever will be vain and 
impotent; and doubly so because of this mercenary 
aid in which you rely, for it irritates to an incurable 
resentment the minds of your adversaries to overrun 
and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to 
the rapacity of hireling cruelty. 

If I were an American as I am an Englishman, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 125 

while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I 
never would lay down my arms, never, never, never! 
But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the 
disgraces and mischiefs of war, has dared to authorize 
and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping- 
knife of the savage — to call into civilized alliance the 
wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods; to dele- 
gate to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed 
rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war- 
fare against his brethren? My lords, these enormi- 
ties cry aloud for redress and punishment. Famil- 
iarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, our army 
can no longer boast of the noble and generous prin- 
ciples which dignify a soldier, No longer are their 
feelings awake to the " pride, pomp, and circumstance 
of glorious war; " but the sense of honor is degraded 
into a vile spirit of plunder and the systematic prac- 
tice of murder. 

From the ancient connection between Great Britain 
and her colonies both parties derived the most im- 
portant advantage. While the shield of our protec- 
tion was extended over America she was the fountain 
of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the basis of 
our power. It is not, my lords, a wild and lawless 
banditti that we oppose; the resistance of America is 
the struggle of free and virtuous patriots. Let us 
then seize with eagerness the present moment of rec- 
onciliation. America has not yet finally given herself 
up to France; there yet remains a possibility of escape 
from the fatal effects of our delusion. In this com- 
plicated crisis of danger, weakness, and calamity, ter- 
rified and insulted by the/ieighboring powers, unable 
to act in America, or acting only to be destroyed, 
where is the man who will venture to flatter us with 



126 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

the hope of success from the perseverance in measures 
productive of these dire effects ? Who has the effront- 
ery to attempt it? Let him, if he dare, stand forth 
and show his face. You cannot conciliate America by 
your present measures; neither can you subdue her 
by your present or any other measures. 



An Optimist Traveling in the South. — Howard 
Henderson. 

The South has had her share of shadow and of 
gloom, but now she is rising to a vision of brightness 
and transformation. Out of the crucible of war the 
hardened muscles and toughened nerves of her sol- 
diery came well prepared to grapple with fortune and 
with fate. Over the rifted clouds of low-lying mists 
she has discerned the auguries of the closing day and 
caught the happy omens of the future. The tradi- 
tions that have clogged her energies have been left 
amid the leached ashes and cooled cinders, while every 
feather of her plumage quivers with an inspiring life 
that lifts her wings and yields them waft. A resolute 
courage whose fiber has been refined by the flame of 
her altar fires braces her winged heart; noble prey in- 
vites her quarry, and, with many a daring swoop she 
is seizing strength-giving game with strong talons, 
and bearing it with easy flight and float to the sun- 
gilded sky of prosperity. 

If bayonets are supposed to think, what must be the 
reflecting power of engines and forges and dynamos? 
The anvil chorus is ringing, and to its hammer-beats 
Birminghams and Sheffields and Chattanoogas are 
rising. 

Everywhere, up and down this bright land, the eye 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 127 

beholds scenes of the happiest omen, and the ear 
catches the myriad sounds of contentment and hope. 
White men and black men work side by side, harmo- 
niously, in fields and furnaces, in factories and mines 
and marts. Hosts of sober, industrious men are seen 
weaving prosperity with work and extorting tribute 
from field and forest, from mine and stream. Day 
after day we hear the booming of towns, the boat 
crews chanting their river melodies, the spindles hum- 
ming, the looms clattering, the furnaces breathing — a 
mighty orchestral chorus of cheerful life. At night 
we hear the banjo humming to the measured tramp 
of dancing feet; full-breasted songs sung by stento- 
rian lungs make the welkin ring. 

Yes, my friends, you may depend upon it that we see 
on every hand inspiring pictures of contentment, of 
prosperity, and of hope. 



Adams and Jefferson. — Webster. 

Adams and Jefferson are no more. They are no 
more, as bold and fearless advocates of independence, 
no more as aged and venerable objects of admiration 
and regard. They are dead. 

But how little is there of the great and good that 
can die! To their country they yet live, and live for- 
ever. They live in all that perpetuates the remem- 
brance of men on earth: in the recorded proofs of 
their own great actions, in the offspring of their in- 
tellect, in the deep engraved lines of public gratitude, 
and in the respect and homage of mankind. They 
live in their examples; and they live and will live in 
the influence which their lives and efforts, their prin- 
ciples and opinions, will exercise on the affairs of men 



128 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

not only in their own country, but throughout the 
civilized world. 

A superior and commanding intellect, a truly great 
man, when heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a 
temporary flame, burning bright for awhile and then 
expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is 
rather a spark of fervent heat as well as radiant light, 
with power to enkindle the common mass of human 
mind, so that when it glimmers in its own decay, and 
finally goes out in death, no night follows; but it 
leaves the world all light and on fire from the potent 
contact of its own spirit. 

Bacon died; but the human understanding, roused 
by the touch of his miraculous wand to a perception 
of the true philosophy, has kept on its course success- 
fully and gloriously. Newton died; yet the courses 
of the spheres are still known, and they yet move on 
in the orbits which he saw and described for them in 
the infinity of space. 

No two men now live — no two men have lived in 
any one age — who, more than those we now com- 
memorate, have impressed their sentiments on the 
politics and government of mankind, infused their 
own opinions more deeply into the opinions of others, 
or given a more lasting direction to the current of 
human thought. The tree which they have planted 
will flourish, although they water it and protect it no 
longer; for it has struck its roots deep; it has sent 
them to the very center; no storm, not of force to burst 
the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread their pro- 
tecting arms broader and broader; and its top is des- 
tined to reach the heavens. 

We are not deceived. There is no delusion here. 
No age will come in which the American revolution 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 129 

will appear less than it is, one of the greatest events 
in human history. No age will come in which it will 
cease to be seen and felt, on either continent, that a 
mighty step was made in human affairs on the fourth 
of July, 1776. And no age will come so ignorant or 
so unjust as not to see and acknowledge the efficient 
agency of those we now honor in producing that 
momentous event. 



The Yeto Power. — Henry Clay. 

Mr. President, I protest against the right of any 
chief to come into either House of Congress and 
scrutinize the motives of its members; to examine 
whether a measure has been passed with promptitude 
or repugnance ; and to pronounce upon the willingness 
or the unwillingness with which it has been adopted 
or rejected. The official and constitutional relations 
between the President and the two houses of Con- 
gress subsist with them as organized bodies. His 
action is confined to their consummated proceedings, 
and does not extend to measures in their incipient 
stages, during their progress through the houses, nor 
to the motives by which they are actuated. 

There are some parts of this message that ought to 
excite deep alarm, and that especially in which the 
President announces that each public officer may in- 
terpretthe Constitution as he pleases. Now I conceive, 
with great deference, that the President has mistaken 
the purport of the oath to support the Constitution of 
the United States. No one swears to support it as he 
understands it, but to support it simply as it is in 
truth. All men are bound to obey the laws of which 
the Constitution is the supreme law; but must they 



130 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

obey them as tliey are, or as they understand them? 
If the obligation of obedience is limited and con- 
trolled by the measure of information; in other words, 
if the party is bound to obey the Constitution only as 
he understands it, what will be the consequence? 
The judge of an inferior court will disobey the man- 
date of a superior tribunal because it is not in con- 
formity to the Constitution as he understands if; a 
custom-house officer will disobey a circular from the 
treasury department because contrary to the Consti- 
tution as he understands it; an American minister will 
disregard an instruction from the President, because 
not agreeable to the Constitution as he understands it; 
and a subordinate officer in the army or navy will 
violate the orders of his superiors because they are 
not in accordance with the Constitution as he under- 
stands it. 

We will have nothing settled, nothing stable, noth- 
ing fixed. There will be general disorder and confu- 
sion throughout every branch of the administration 
from the highest to the lowest officer — universal nul- 
lification. For what is the doctrine of the President 
but that of South Carolina applied throughout the 
Union? The President independent of both the Con- 
gress and the Supreme Court ! Only bound to execute 
the laws of the one and the decisions of the other, as 
far as they conform to the Constitution of the United 
States as he understands it! Then it should be the 
duty of every President, on his installation into office, 
carefully to examine all the acts in the statute-books 
and mark out those which he is resolved not to exe- 
cute, and to which he means to apply this new species 
of veto, because they are repugnant to the Constitu- 
tion as he understands it. And after every term of 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 131 

the Supreme Court he should send for the record of 
its decisions and discriminate between those which he 
will and those which he will not execute, because they 
are or are not agreeable to the Constitution as he un- 
derstands it. 

Mr. President, we are about to close one of the 
longest and most arduous sessions of Congress under 
the present Constitution; and when we return among 
our Constituents, what account of the operations of 
their government shall we be bound to communicate? 
We shall be compelled to say that the Supreme Court 
is paralyzed and the missionaries retained in prison 
in contempt of its authority and in defiance of numer- 
ous treaties and laws of the United States; that the 
executive, through the Secretary of the Treasury, sent 
to Congress a tariff bill which would have destroyed 
many branches of our domestic industry; and, to the 
final destruction of all, that the veto has been applied 
to the bank of the United States, our only reliance 
for a safe and uniform currency; that the Senate has 
been violently attacked for the exercise of a clear, 
constitutional power; that the House of Eepresenta- 
tives has been unnecessarily assailed; and that the 
President has promulgated a rule of action for those 
who have taken the oath to support the Constitution 
of the United States, that must, if there be practical 
conformity to it, introduce general nullification and 
end in the absolute subversion of the government. 



Jefferson Davis. — John Bandolph. Tucker. 

We join with the millions in the South to do rev- 
erence to the splendid name and fame of Jefferson 



132 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Davis, the soldier, the statesman, and the Christian 
patriot. 

We will not revive the thoughts, the motives, or the 
actions of a past generation; but with warm and hon- 
est hearts we avow that, though our Confederacy be 
buried forever, we still love and revere the truth and 
integrity, the constancy and fortitude, the honor and 
the virtues, the genius and patriotism of the heroes 
who led and filled our armies; and of the executive 
chieftain whose master hand directed our destiny in 
that momentous crisis. 

And why do we join in this tribute to his memory? 
Because he was in himself worthy of admiration and 
esteem. He had a splendid intellect, keen and crit- 
ical in insight and profound and diligent in research. 
He was a philosophical thinker on the highest prob- 
lems of political science, and he had in a high degree 
the practical sense for the administration of public 
affairs. In the Senate, standing erect in mind and 
person as the champion of truth, he flung down the 
gage of battle in the arena of debate with a courage 
as heroic as his courtesy was knightly. His will was 
guided by the deepest conviction, his judgment was 
sound and reliable, and his soul was the seat of honor 
and of chivalry. Always true to his friends, he was 
firm and resolute to his foes. His affections were ar- 
dent, his impulses noble, his motives pure, and his 
faith in God fixed, humble, and sincere. 

Again, we owe him reverence, for Davis was the 
heroic friend of the Southland. He heard her clarion 
call, and he obeyed it with a religious purpose to save 
her liberty in the new Confederacy. He had experi- 
ence in statesmanship, knowledge of affairs, and per- 
sonal magnetism; with a resolution which could not 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 133 

be turned aside, and a will which would not yield to 
fear, he could not be seduced by policy or personal in- 
terest. Taking him as civilian and soldier, statesman 
and popular leader, as a judicious counselor, and the 
possessor of an aggressive and unbending will, I think 
it may be said that none of his contemporaries equaled 
him in the entireness of his manhood, though many 
excelled him in some one of his wonderful gifts. If 
he failed, who could have succeeded? If he made 
mistakes, which one of his contemporaries would have 
made less in number or less in degree? This much 
is undoubtedly true, Jefferson Davis heroically main- 
tained the principles for which the South contended, 
with an eye that never quailed, with a cheek that 
never blanched, with a step that never faltered, a 
courage that never flinched, a fortitude that never 
failed, a fidelity that even captivity could not repress, 
and with a constancy even unto death! For four 
years, without commerce or national recognition, with 
a government new and imperfectly organized, with an 
army and navy to be raised, with scarcely one-half the 
numbers of its foe, and less than half the resources, 
the Confederacy, under his leadership, and with the 
genius of its military and naval heroes, upheld a con- 
flict which was the miracle of the age in which it oc- 
curred, and will be the romance of the future his- 
torian. 

It is true the Confederacy went down below the 
horizon of history forever, and its name as a nation 
is effaced from the page of human annals for all time 
to come, yet the cheeks of our children will not blush 
for its fate, but will flush with pride and admiration 
as they hear the tale of patience, constancy and forti- 
tude, the adventurous daring and heroism, the gen- 



134 I HE PEARL SPEAKER. 

ius of leadership, and the victories of their noble 
fathers. Our Confederacy sunk in sorrow, but not in 
shame. Dark and gloomy clouds gathered in heavy 
folds around its setting, but they did not, they could 
not blacken it! It lit them into effulgence with its 
transcendent glory. 

Continuation of the Same. 
Jefferson Davis deserves our reverence, because he 
stood for a quarter of a century in our place. He en- 
dured a cruel captivity of two years; and for many 
years afterward was the vicarious victim of obloquy 
and reproach that was due to us all. His fortitude 
and devotion to truth never failed. He endured not 
in silence, but with a protest which history has re- 
corded and will preserve as an emphatic vindication 
of the Confederacy from malign aspersions on the 
motives of its friends, on the origin and causes of its 
formation, and on the purposes of justice and liberty 
which inspired those who died in its defense, or who 
survived to illustrate its principles in doing the duties, 
public and private, which God in his providence as- 
signed them to perform. He died a citizen of Mis- 
sissippi and of the United States, and under disabil- 
ity to hold office under the government of the United 
States. He desired no place: why should he now de- 
sire a recognition who had filled his place in the tem- 
ple of fame and in the domain of history? He lived 
and died in personal dignity and in the peace of God. 
What artificial disability could taint his real nature? 
Why seek to remove it? He made an heroic and hon- 
est effort to give freedom and independence to the 
South, and had failed. God's will be done ! He chose 
the sacred retirement of home, its charms of family 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 135 

and friends, and waited with firm reliance on divine 
goodness for the last summons which comes to him 
who has humbly but bravely, conscientiously, and 
with undaunted courage and patience done his duty 
as he saw it, to truth, to his country, and to God. 

Virginia, keeping guard over the holy dust of Lee 
and Jackson, turns aside with millions of her coun- 
trymen, with mournful reverence and tender hearts, 
to twine a wreath of martial glory and weave a chap- 
let of civic fame to rest upon the tomb of Jefferson 
Davis. On the grave of our Confederacy will be in- 
scribed in imperishable characters the immortal name 
of the martial civilian who was its first, its only Pres- 
ident. We will plant flowers about it, and we will 
water them with our tears, not hoping for its antici- 
pated resurrection, but to embalm it in our fragrant 
memories and in our most precious affections. And 
then, turning from the ashes of the dead past to the 
active duty dictated by Johnston and Jackson and 
Lee and Davis, we will labor with a fidelity wrought 
by the stern but noble discipline of our past experi- 
ence for the maintenance of our constitutional liberty 
they imperiled their lives to save, and for the promo- 
tion of the true prosperity, progress, and glory of our 
common country. 



Defense of One on Tkial for Murder. — John J. 
Crittenden. 
Gentlemen, my task is done; the decision of this 
case, the fate of this prisoner, is in your hands. Guilty 
or innocent — life or death, whether the captive shall 
joyfully go free or be consigned to a disgraceful and 
ignominious death, all depend on a few words from you. 



136 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Is there any thing in this world more like omnipo- 
tence, more like the power of the Eternal, than that 
you now possess? 

Yes, you are to decide: and, as I leave the case with 
you, I implore you to consider it well and mercifully 
before you pronounce a verdict of guilty — a verdict 
which is to cut asunder all the tender cords that bind 
heart to heart, and to consign this young man, in the 
flower of his days and in the midst of his hopes, to 
shame and to death. Such a verdict must often come 
up in your recollections, must live forever in your 
minds. And in after days, when the wild voice of 
clamor that now fills the air is hushed, when memory 
shall review this busy scene, should her accusing 
voice tell you you have dealt hardly with a brother's 
life, that you have sent him to death when you have 
a doubt whether it is not your duty to restore him 
to life, O what a moment that must be! How like 
a cancer will that remembrance prey upon your 
hearts ! 

But if, on the other hand, having rendered a con- 
trary verdict, you feel that there should have been a 
conviction, that sentiment will be easily satisfied. 
You will say: " If I erred, it was on the side of mercy; 
thank God I incurred no hazard by condemning a 
man I thought innocent! " How different the memory 
from that which may come in any calm moment, by 
day or by night, knocking at the door of your hearts, 
and reminding you that in a case where you were 
doubtful by your verdict you sent an innocent man 
to disgrace and death! O pronounce do such, I be- 
seech you, but on the most certain, clear, and solid 
grounds! If you err, for your own sake as well as 
his, keep on the side of humanity, and save him from 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 137 

so dishonorable a fate; preserve yourselves from so 
bitter a memory. 

I am no advocate, gentlemen, of any criminal licen- 
tiousness. I desire that society shall be protected, 
that the laws of my country may be obeyed and en- 
forced. Any other state of things I should deplore: 
but I have examined this case, I think, carefully and 
calmly. I see much to regret, much that I wish had 
never happened; but I see no evil intentions and mo- 
tives, no wicked malignity, and therefore no murder, 
no felony. 

There is another consideration of which we should 
not be unmindful. We are all conscious of the infirm- 
ities of our nature, and the law makes an allowance 
for such infirmities. The Author of our being has 
been pleased to fashion us out of great and mighty 
elements, which make us but little lower than the 
angels, but he has mingled in our composition weak- 
ness and passions. Will he punish us for frailties 
which nature has stamped upon us, or for their nec- 
essary results? The difference between these and 
acts that proceed from a wicked and malignant heart 
is founded on eternal justice; and, in the words of the 
Psalmist, "He knoweth our frame; he remembereth 
that we are dust." Shall not the rule He has estab- 
lished be good enough for us to judge by? 

Gentlemen, the case is closed. Again I ask you to 
consider it well before you pronounce a verdict which 
shall consign this prisoner to a grave of ignominy and 
dishonor. These are no idle words you have heard so 
often. This is your fellow-citizen — a youth of prom- 
ise, the rose of his family, the possessor of all kind 
and virtuous and manly qualities. It is the blood of 
a Kentuckian you are called upon to shed. The blood 



138 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

that flows in liis veins has come down from those noble 
pioneers who laid the foundations for the greatness 
and glory of our State; it is the blood of a race who 
have never spared it when demanded by their coun- 
try's cause. It is his fate you are to decide. I excite 
no poor, unmanly sympathy; I appeal to no low, 
groveling spirit. He is a man — you are men — and I 
only want that sympathy which man can give to man. 
I will not detain you longer; but you know — and it 
is right you should — the terrible suspense in which 
some of these hearts must beat during your absence. 
It is proper for you to consider this, for in such a case 
as this all the feelings of the mind and heart should 
sit in council together. Your duty is yet to be done; 
perform it as you are ready to answer for it here and 
hereafter. Perform it calmly and dispassionately, 
remembering that vengeance can give no satisfaction 
to any human being. But if you exercise it in this 
case, it will spread black midnight and despair over 
many aching hearts. May the God of all mercy be 
with you in your deliberations, assist you in the per- 
formance of your duty, and teach you to judge your 
fellow-man as you hope to be judged hereafter! 



Bum. (Adapted.) 
I have inquired, I have sought, I have read, and 
I have reflected; and as I have reflected, I have con- 
cluded that whisky is of all things hated the ally of 
discord. Rum is the breeder of sullenness, rum is 
the genius of disorder; and when the American 
people, roused from the intolerable apathy that holds 
them in its stupefying thrall, shall look around for 
the disturber of the public peace, they will discover 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 139 

that strong drink is the moving cause everywhere of 
nearly all the ills that afflict society. 

Rum is a dreadful knife whose edge is never red 
with blood, but it severs throats from ear to ear. It 
assassinates the peace of families, it cuts away honor 
from the family name, it lets out the vital spark of 
life, and is followed by inconsolable death. It 
pierces hearts, and enters the bosom of trust, goring 
it with gashes that God alone can heal. It is deaf 
to the cries of hungry children, and refuses to hear 
the pleadings of famished wives. 

Behold the barriers of flame it often throws around 
poor, despairing, miserable men! Listen to their 
indifference, their self-condemnation, their wail of 
agony! Can you wonder that the outcast abandons 
hope, and plunges the knife into his own heart? 
Driven to madness, and feeling that all is lost, he 
commits an act that does indeed lose every thing for 
him, for it bars the gates of heaven against him. 

Let us expel rum from the nation; let us establish 
a vigilant quarantine against him as an immigrant 
more to be dreaded than the deadliest plague or the 
most loathesome leprosy; and, thus protected, let so- 
briety reign without a drunkard to menace the peace 
of home, the safety of the street, the security of the 
highway, the sanctity of the shrine, or the incense of 
the altar. Then the bright morning-star of hope will 
twinkle over the cradle of innocence, the stronghold 
of youth, and the citadel of silver-haired age; it will 
hang in the gray gates of the dawn, the welcome her- 
ald of the king of the day, and erelong, with the 
transfiguring splendor of celestial pageantry, the con- 
quering monarch will mount his throne of fire and 
sway all the spaces with a scepter of light swung by love. 



140 1HE PEARL SPEAKER. 

It is simply a question of pig-men or pig-iron; of 
outrage or order, of slavery to drink or the freedom 
of sobriety. America has many problems to solve, 
but the unknown quantity in every equation presented 
to statesmanship or philanthropy is the influence of 
the still and vat, the saloon and beer-garden, the 
drunkard and the cause of his drunkenness. Dethrone 
King Alcohol, and America will be free from despot- 
ism: a land of light, of love, and of liberty. 



Spartacus to the Gladiators At Capua. — 

E. Kellogg. 
Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief 
who for twelve long years has met upon the arena 
every shape of man or beast the broad empire of 
Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his 
arm. If there be one among you who can say that 
ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did 
belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If 
there be three in all your company dare face me on 
the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was 
not always thus — a hired butcher, a savage chief of 
still more savage men! My ancestors came from old 
Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and 
citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet 
as the brooks by which I sported; and when at 
noon I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and 
played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, 
the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. 
We led our flocks to the same pasture and partook 
together oar rustic meal. One evening, after the 
sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath 
the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 141 

an old man, was telling of Marathon, and Leuctra; 
and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans. 
in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole 
army. I did not then know what war was; but my 
cheeks burned, I knew not why, and I clasped the 
knees of that venerable man, until my mother part- 
ing the hair off my forehead, kissed my throbbing 
temple and bid me go to rest, and think no more 
of those old tales and savage wars. That very night 
the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast 
that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the 
war-horse, the bleeding body of my father flung 
amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling! 

To-day I killed a man in the arena; and when I 
broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend. 
He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died; the 
same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked 
when in adventurous boyhood we scaled the lofty 
cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them 
home in childish triumph. I told the pretor that 
the dead man had been my friend, generous and 
brave; and I begged that I might bear away the 
body, to burn it on a funeral pile and mourn over its 
ashes. Ay, upon my knees, amid the dust and blood 
of the arena, I begged that poor boon while all the 
assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins 
they call vestals, and the rabble shouted in derision, 
deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest 
gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece 
of bleding clay! And the pretor drew back as I 
were pollution, and sternly said: "Let the carrion 
rot, there are no noble men but Romans!" And so, 
fellow-gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like 
dogs. O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender 



142 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

nurse to me. Ah! thou hast given to that poor, gen- 
tle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher 
tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of 
flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited 
mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the 
marrow of his foe; to gaze into the glaring eye-balls 
of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a 
laughing girl ! And he shall pay thee back, until the 
yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deep- 
est ooze thy life-blood lies curdled! 

Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The 
strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but 
to-morrow some Roman Adonis breathing sweet per- 
fume from his curly locks shall with his lily fingers 
pat your red brawn and bet sesterces upon your 
blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 
'Tis three days since he tasted flesh; but to-morrow 
he shall break his fast upon yours — and a dainty 
meal for him ye will be! If ye are beasts, then stand 
here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's knife! 
If ye are men, follow me! Strike down yon guard, 
gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work, 
as did your sires at old Thermopylae. Is Sparta 
dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, 
that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound 
beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! 
Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! 
If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors ! 
If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the 
bright waters, in noble, honorable battle! 



Spartacur to the Roman Envoys.— E. Kellogg. 
Envoys of Rome, the poor camp of Spartacus is too 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 143 

much honored by your presence. And does Eome 
stoop to parley with the escaped gladiator — with the 
rebel ruffian, to whom heretofore no slight has been 
too scornful ? You have come with steel in your right 
hand and with gold in your left. What heed we give 
the former, ask Cossineus; ask Claudius; ask Varin- 
ius; ask the bones of your legions that fertilize the 
Lucanian plains. And for your gold — would ye know 
what we do with that? Go ask the laborer and trod- 
den poor, the helpless and the hopeless on our route; 
ask all whom Roman tyranny had crushed or Roman 
avarice plundered. Ye have seen me before; but ye 
did not then shun my glance as now. Ye have seen 
me in the arena, when I was Rome's pet ruffian, daily 
smeared with blood of men or beasts. One day — 
shall I forget it ever? — ye were present; I had fought 
long and well. Exhausted as I was, your munerator, 
your lord of the games, bethought him it were an equal 
match to set against me a new man, younger and 
lighter than I, but fresh and valiant. With Thracian 
sword and buckler, forth he came, a beautiful defiance 
on his brow ! Bloody and brief the fight. " He has 
it!" cried the people; "habet! habet!" But still he 
lowered not his arm until, at length, I held him gash- 
ed and fainting in my power. I looked around upon 
the podium, where sat your senators and men of State, 
to catch the signal of release, of mercy. But not a 
thumb was reversed. To crown your sport, the van- 
quished man must die! Obedient brute that I was, I 
was about to slay when a few hurried words — rather 
a welcome to death than a plea for life — told me he 
was a Thracian. I stood transfixed. The arena van- 
ished. I was in Thrace, upon my native hills! The 
sword dropped from my hands. I raised the dying 



144 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

youth tenderly in my arms. O the magnaminity of 
Borne! Your haughty leaders, enraged at being 
cheated o£ their death-show, hissed their disappoint- 
ment and shouted: " Kill! " I heeded them as I would 
heed the howl of wolves. Kill him? They might 
better have asked the mother to kill the babe smiling 
in her face. Ah! he was already wounded unto death; 
and, amid the angry yells of the spectators, he died. 
That night I was scourged for disobedience. I shall 
not forget it; should memory fail, there are scars 
here to quicken it. 

Well; do not grow impatient. Some hours after, 
finding myself with seventy fellow-gladiators, alone 
in the amphitheater, the laboring thought broke forth 
in words. I said I know not what. I only know that 
when I ceased my comrades looked each other in the 
face, and then burst forth the simultaneous cry: 
" Lead on! lead on, O Spartacus! " Forth we rushed, 
seized what rude weapons chance threw in our way, 
and to the mountains speeded. There day by day our 
little band increased. Disdainful Rome sent after us 
a handful of her troops, with a scourge for the slave 
Spartacus. Their weapons soon were ours. She sent 
an army ; and down from old Vesuvius we poured and 
slew three thousand. Now it was Spartacus the 
dreaded rebel! A larger army, headed by the pretor, 
was sent and routed; then another still. And always 
I remember that tierce cry riving my heart and call- 
me to " kill ! " In three pitched battles have I obeyed 
it. And now affrighted Rome sends her two Con- 
suls and puts forth all her strength by land and sea, 
as if a Pyrrhus or a Hannibal were on her borders! 

Envoys of Rome! to Lentulus and Gellius bear this 
message: "Their graves are measured!" Look on 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 145 

that narrow stream, a silver thread high on the mount- 
ain side! Slenderly it winds; but soon, swelled by 
others meeting it, until a torrent terrible and strong, 
it sweeps to the abyss, where all is ruin. So Spar- 
tacus comes on; so swells his force — small and de- 
spised at first, but now resistless! On, on to Kome 
we come ! The gladiators come ! Let Opulence trem- 
ble in all his palaces! Let Oppression shudder to 
think the oppressed may have their turn! Let Cru- 
elty turn pale at thought of redder hands than his! 

we shall not forget Rome's many lessons! She 
shall not find her training was all wasted upon indo- 
cile pupils. Now, begone! prepare the eternal city 
for our games. 

ElENZI TO THE ROMANS. — MAEY RUSSELL MlTFORD. 

Friends! 

1 come not here to talk. You know too well 
The story of our thralldom. We are slaves! 
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 
A race of slaves! He sets, and his last beam 
Falls on a slave — not such as, swept along 
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads 
To crimson glory and undying fame; 

But base, ignoble slaves! — slaves to a horde 
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots; lords, 
Rich in some dozen paltry villages; 
Strong in some hundred spearmen, only great 
In that strange spell — a name ! Each hour dark fraud 
Or open rapine or protected murder 
Cries put against them. But this very day 
An honest man, my neighbor — there he stands — 
Was struck — struck like a dog by one who wore 
The badge of Ursius! because, forsooth 
10 



146 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 

Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts, 

At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men, 

And suffer such dishonor? Men, and wash not 

The stain away in blood? Such shames are common; 

I have known deeper wrongs, I that speak to ye : 

I had a brother once, a gracious boy, 

Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope, 

Of sweet and quiet joy; there was the look 

Of heaven upon his face, which limners gave 

To the beloved disciple. How I loved 

That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years, 

Brother at once and son ! He left my side, 

A summer bloom on his fair cheeks — a smile 

Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour 

The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw 

The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried 

For vengeance ! Bouse, ye Bomans ! rouse, ye slaves ! 

Have ye brave sons? Look in the next fierce brawl 

To see them die! Have ye fair daughters? Look 

To see them live, torn from your arms, disdained, 

Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice, 

Be answered by the lash! Tet this is Borne, 

That safe on her seven hills, and from her throne 

Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Bomans. 

Why, in that elder day, to be a Boman 

Was greater than a King! And once again — 

Hear me, ye walls that echoed to the tread 

Of either Brutus! — once again I swear 

The Eternal City shall be free! 



The Soldier's Dream. — Thomas Campbell. 

Our bugle sung truce, for the night cloud had lowered, 

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 147 

And thousands had sunk on the ground overpow- 
ered, 

The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. 
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, 

By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain, 
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, 

And thrice ere the morning I dreamed it again. 

Me thought from the battle-field's dreadful array, 

Far, far I had roamed o'er a desolate track; 
'Twas autumn — and sunshine arose on the way 

To the home of my fathers that welcomed me back. 
I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft 

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young, 
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, 

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers 
sung. 

Then pledged we tne wine-cups and fondly I swore 

From my .home and my weeping friends never to 
part: 
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er, 

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart: 
"Stay, stay with us— rest, thou art weary and worn!" 

And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; 
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn 

And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. 



Besistance to British Aggeession. — Patrick 
Henry. 

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in 
the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes 
against a painful truth, and listen to the song of 
of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is 



148 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

this the part of wise men engaged in the great and 
arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to 
be of the number of those who, having eyes, see 
not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so 
nearly concern our temporal salvation? For my 
part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am 
willing to know the whole truth — to know the worst, 
and to provide for it. 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided: 
and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no 
w T ay of judging the future but by the past; and, 
judging by the past, I wish to know what there has 
been in the conduct of the British ministry for the 
last ten years to justify those hopes with which the 
gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves 
and the House? Is it that insidious smile with 
which our petition has lately been received? Trust 
it not, sir: it will prove a snare to your feet! Suffer 
not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss! Ask your- 
selves how the gracious reception of our petition 
comports with those warlike preparations which cover 
our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and 
armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? 
Have, we shown ourselves so unwilling to be recon- 
ciled that force must be called in to win back our 
love. 

Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the 
implements of war and subjugation, the last argu- 
ments to which kings resort. I ask, gentlemen, what 
means this martial array, if its purpose be not to 
force us into submission? Can gentlemen assign 
any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain 
any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for 
all this accumulation of armies and navies? No, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 149 

sir; she has none. They are meant for us. They can 
be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and 
rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry 
has been so long forging. And what have we to oppose 
to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have 
been trying that for the last ten years. Have we 
any thing new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. 
"We have held the subject up in every light of 
which it is capable, but it has been all in vain. 

Shall we resort to treaty and supplication? What 
terms shall we find which have not been already ex- 
hausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive our- 
selves longer. Sir, we have done every thing that 
could be done to avert the storm which is now coming 
on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we 
have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before 
the throne, and have implored its interposition to ar- 
rest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parlia- 
ment. Our petitions have been slighted, our remon- 
strances have produced additional violence and insult, 
our supplications have been disregarded, and we have 
been spurned with contempt from the foot of the 
throne. 

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond 
hope of peace and reconciliation! There is no longer 
any room for hope. If we wish to be free; if we mean 
to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for 
which we have been so long contending; if we mean 
not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we 
have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged 
ourselves never to abandon until the glorious ob- 
ject of our contest shall be obtained — we must fight! 
I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms 
and to the God of hosts is all that is left us ! 



150 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Continuation of the Same. 

They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope 
with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we 
be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next 
year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and 
when a British guard shall be stationed in every 
house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and 
inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual 
resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hug- 
ging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies 
shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not 
weak if we make a proper use of those means which 
the God of nature hath placed in our power. 

Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause 
of liberty, and in such a country as that which we 
possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy 
can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight 
our battles alone. There is a just God who presides 
over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up 
friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is 
not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the act- 
ive, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If 
we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to 
retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in 
submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! 
Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! 
The war is inevitable; let it come! I repeat it, sir, 
let it come! 

It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 
may cry " Peace! peace! " but there is no peace. The 
war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps 
from the North will bring to our ears the clash of re- 
sounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the field. 
Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 151 

wish? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be pur- 
chased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, 
Almighty God! I know not what course others may 
take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death ! 



North American Indians.— Sprague. 

Not many generations ago, where you now sit, en- 
circled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized 
life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild 
fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved an- 
other race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls 
over your head the Indian hunter pursued the pant- 
ing deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for 
you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here 
the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and the help- 
less, and the council fire glared on the wise and dar- 
ing. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your 
sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe 
along your rocky shores. Here was the echoing 
whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song; 
and when the tiger strife was over, here curled the 
smoke of peace. 

Here, too, they worshiped; and from many a dark 
bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. 
He had not written his laws for them on tables of 
stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their 
hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God 
of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowl- 
edged in every thing around. He beheld him in the 
star that sunk in beauty behind his lonely dwelling, 
in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday 
throne, in the flower that snapped in the morning 
breeze, in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirl- 



152 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

winds, in the timid warbler that never left its native 
grove, in the fearless eagle whose untired pinion was 
wet in clouds, in the worm that crawled at his feet, 
and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark 
of that light to whose mysterious source he bent in 
humble though blind adoration. 

And all this has passed away. Across the ocean 
came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and 
death. The former were sown for you; the latter 
sprung up in the path of the simple native. Two 
hundred years have changed the character of a great 
continent, and blotted forever from its face a whole 
peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nat- 
ure, and the anointed children of education have 
been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. 
Here and there a stricken few remain; but how un- 
like their bold, untamable progenitors. The Indian of 
falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touch- 
ing ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone! and 
his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he 
walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man 
when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck. 

As a race they have withered from the land. Their 
arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their 
cabins are in the dust. Their council fires have long 
since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is 
fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and sad- 
ly they climb the distant mountains, and read their 
doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before 
the mighty tide that is pressing them away; they 
must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will 
settle over them forever. Ages hence the inquisitive 
white man, as he stands by some growing city, will 
ponder upon the structure of their disturbed remains, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 153 

and wonder to what manner of man they belonged. 
They will live only in the songs and chronicles of 
their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their 
rude virtues as men, and pay due tribute to their un- 
happy fate as a people. 



Supposed Speech of John Adams. — Webster. 

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give 
my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, in- 
deed, that at the beginning we aimed not at independ- 
ence; but "there's a divinity that shapes our end." 
The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, 
blinded to her own interest for our good, she has 
obstinately persisted till independence is now within 
our grasp. We have but to reach forth for it, and it 
is ours. Why, then, shall we defer the declaration? 
Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconcilia- 
tion with England, which shall leave either safety 
to the* country and its liberties, or safety to his 
own life and his own honor? Are not you, sir, who 
sit in that chair; is not he, our venerable colleague, 
near you; are you not both already the proscribed and 
predestined objects of punishment and vengeance? 
Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are 
you, what can you be, while the power of England 
remains, but outlaws? 

If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry 
on or give up the war? Do we mean to submit to 
the measures of Parliament, Boston Port bill and all? 
Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves 
shall be ground to powder and our country and its 
rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not 
mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we 



154 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever 
entered into by men — that plighting, before God, of 
our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him 
forth to incur the dangers of war as well as the polit- 
ical hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to 
him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our 
lives ? 

I know there is not a man here who would not 
rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land 
or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that 
plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having 
twelve months ago, in this place, moved you that 
George Washington be appointed commander of the 
forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense of Amer- 
ican liberty, may my right hand forget its cunning 
and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I 
hesitate or waver in the support I give him ! The war 
then must go on. We must fight it through. 

And if the war must go on, why put off longer the 
Declaration of Independence? That measure will 
strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. 
The nations will then treat with us, which they can 
never do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in 
arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that 
England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on 
the footing of independence than consent by repeal- 
ing her acts to acknowledge that her whole conduct 
toward us has been a course of injustice and oppres- 
sion. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting 
to that course of things which now predestinates our 
independence than by yielding the points in contro- 
versy to her rebellious subjects. The former she 
would regard as the result of fortune; the latter she 
would feel as her own deep disgrace. Why, then, sir, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 155 

do we not, as soon as possible, change this from a 
civil to a national war? And> since we must fight it 
through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all 
the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory? 

Conclusion of the Preceding. 

The cause will raise up armies, the cause will create 
navies. The people — the people — if we are true to 
them, will carry us and will carry themselves glori- 
ously through the struggle. I care not how fickle 
other people have been found. I know the people of 
these colonies; and I know that resistance to British 
aggression is deep and settled in their hearts and can- 
not be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has ex- 
pressed its willingness to follow if we but take the 
lead. Sir, the Declaration will inspire the people 
with increased courage. Instead of a long and 
bloody war for restoration of privilege, for re- 
dress of grievances, for chartered immunities held 
under a British king, set before them the glorious 
object of entire independence, and it will breathe into 
them anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration 
at the head of the army: every sword will be drawn 
from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to 
maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Publish 
it from the pulpit: religion will approve it, and the 
love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved 
to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public 
halls ; proclaim it there ; let them hear it who first heard 
the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it 
who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of 
Bunker Hill and in the streets of Lexington and Con- 
cord: and the very walls will cry out in its support. 

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs; but I 



156 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

see clearly through this day's business. You aud I, 
indeed, may rue it. We may not live to see the time 
when this Declaration shall be made good. We may 
die — die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignomin- 
ously and on the scaffold! Be it so! Be it so! If it be 
the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require 
the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready 
at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour 
may. But, while I do live,, let me have a country, or 
at least the hope of country, and that a free country. 
But whatever may be our fate, be assured that this 
Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure and it 
may cost blood, but it will stand, and it will richly 
compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of 
the present I see the brightness of the future, as the 
sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an im- 
mortal day. When we are in our graves our children 
will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiv- 
ing, with festivity, with bonfires and illuminations. 
On its annual return they will shed tears — copious, 
gushing tears — not of subjection and slavery, not of 
agony and distress; but of exultation, of gratitude, 
and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour has 
come! My judgment approves this measure, and my 
whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I 
am, and all that I hope for in this life, I am now 
ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun 
that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Dec- 
laration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the 
blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment — 
Independence now, and independence forever! 



Imperishability of Great Examples.— Everett. 
To be cold and breathless — to feel not and speak 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 157 

not — this is not the end of existence to the men who 
have breathed their spirits into the institutions of 
their country, who have stamped their characters on 
the pillars of the age, who have poured their hearts' 
blood into the channels of the public prosperity. 
Tell me, ye who tread the sods of yonder sacred 
height, is Warren dead? Can you not still see him, 
not pale and prostrate, the blood of his gallant heart 
pouring out of his ghastly wound, but moving re- 
splendent over the field of honor, with the rose of 
heaven upon his cheek and the fire of liberty in his 
eye? Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage 
to the shades of Mount Vernon, is Washington in- 
deed shut up in that cold and narrow house? That 
which made these men and men like these cannot die. 
The hand that traced the charter of independence 
is, indeed, motionless ; the eloquent lips that sustained 
it are hushed; but the lofty spirits that conceived, 
resolved, and maintained it, and which alone, to such 
men, "make it life to live," these cannot expire: 

These shall resist the empire of decay, 
When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away; 
Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, 
But that which warmed it once can never die. 



The Baron's Last Banquet. — Albert G. Greene. 

O'er a low couch the setting sun had thrown its latest 

ray, 
Where, in his last strong agony, a dying warrior lay — - 
The stern old Baron Budiger, whose frame had ne'er 

been bent 
By wasting pain, till time and toil its iron strength 

had spent. 



158 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

" They come around me here, and say my days of life 

are o'er — 
That I shall mount my noble steed and lead my band 

no more: 
They come, and, to my beard, they dare to tell me 

now that I, 
Their own liege lord and master born, that I — ha, 

ha! — must die. 

"And what is death? I've dared him oft, before the 

Paynim spear; 
Think ye he's entered at my gate — has come to seek 

me here? 
I've met him, faced him, scorned him, when the fight 

was raging hot; 
I'll try his might, I'll brave his power! — defy, and 

fear him not! 

"Ho! sound the tocsin from my tower, and fire the 

culverin ; 
Bid each retainer arm with speed ; call every vassal in ; 
Up with my banner on the wall; the banquet board 

prepare ; 
Throw wide the portal of my hall, and bring my 

armor there!" 

A hundred hands were busy then; the banquet forth 

was spread, 
And rung the heavy oaken floor with many a martial 

tread; 
"While from the rich, dark tracery, along the vaulted 

wall, 
Lights gleamed on harness, plume, and spear, o'er the 

proud old Gothic hall. 

Fast hurrying through the outer gate, the mailed re- 
tainers poured, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 159 

On through the portals' frowning arch, and thronged 

around the board; 
While at its head, within his dark, carved oaken 

chair of state, 
Armed cap-a-pie, stern Rudiger, with girded falchion 

sate. 

"Fill every beaker up, my men! pour forth the cheer- 
ing wine! 

There's life and strength in every drop — thanks- 
giving to the vine! 

Are ye all there, my vassals true? — mine eyes are 
waxing dim; 

Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, each goblet to 
the brim! 

" Ye're there, but yet I see you not! Draw forth each 

rusty sword, 
And let me hear your faithful steel clash once around 

my board! 
I hear it faintly; louder yet! What clogs my heavy 

breath? 
Up, all! and shout for Rudiger: 'Defiance unto 

death!'" 

Bowl rang to bowl, steel clanged to steel, and rose a 

deafening cry 
That made the torches flare around and shook the 

flags on high : 
"Ho, cravens! do ye fear him? Slaves! traitors! 

have ye flown? 
Ho! cowards, have ye left me to meet him here alone? 

"But I defy him! let him come!" Down rang the 
massy cup, 



160 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

While from its sheath the ready blade came flashing 
half-way up; 

And, with the black and heavy plumes scarce trem- 
bling on his head, 

There, in his dark, carved oaken chair, old Rudiger 
sat — dead! 

Destruction of Sennacherib.— Lord Byron. 
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the 

sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host, with their banners, at sunset were seen: 
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath 

blown, 
That host, on the morrow, lay withered and strewn. 

For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew 
still! 

And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide, 
And through them there rolled not the breath of his 

pride ; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 

And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, 
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 161 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! 



South Cakolina and Massachusetts, 1830. — Web- 

STEK. 

The eulogium pronounced on the State of South 
Carolina by the honorable gentleman, for her revo- 
lutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concur- 
rence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable 
member goes before me in regard for whatever of dis- 
tinguished talent or distinguished character South 
Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor; I 
partake in the pride of her great names. I claim 
them for my countrymen, one and all. The Lawrences, 
the Butledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Ma- 
rions — Americans all — whose fame is no more to be 
hemmed in by State lines than their talent and patri- 
otism were capable of being circumscribed within the 
same narrow limits. In their day and generation they 
served and honored the country, and the whole coun- 
try, and their renown is of the treasures of the whole 
country. Him whose honored name the gentleman 
himself bears— does he suppose me less capable of 
gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his suf- 
ferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the 
light of Massachusetts instead of South Carolina. 
Sir, does he suppose it is in his power to exhibit a 
Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my 
bosom? No, sir; increased gratification and delight, 
rather. 

Sir, I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the 
11 



162 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

spirit which is said to be able to raise mortals to the 
skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit 
which would drag angels down. When I shall be 
found, sir, here in my place in the Senate or else- 
where, to sneer at public merit because it happened 
to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State 
or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, 
or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, 
to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty 
and the country; or, if I see an uncommon endow- 
ment of heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and 
virtue in any son of the South, and if, moved by local 
prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up 
here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just char- 
acter and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof 
of my mouth! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollec- 
tions; let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of 
the past; let me remind you that in early times no 
States cherished greater harmony, both of principle 
and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. 
Would to God that harmony might again return! 
Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Kevolu- 
tion; hand to hand they stood around the adminis- 
tration of Washington, and felt his own great arm 
lean upon them for support. Unkind feeling, if it 
exist; alienation and distrust, are the growth, unnatu- 
ral to such soil, of false principles since sown. They 
are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm 
never scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon 
Massachusetts — she needs none. There she is; be- 
hold her and judge for yourselves. There is her his- 
tory: the world knows it by heart. The past is at 
least secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 163 

Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will 
remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in 
the great struggle for independence, now lie 
mingled with the soil of every State from New En- 
gland to Georgia; and there they lie forever. And, 
sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and 
where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it 
still lives in the strength and fullness of its original 
spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if 
party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at it and 
tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salu- 
tary and necessary restraints shall succeed to separate 
it from that Union by which alone its existence is 
made sure — it will stand, in the end, by the side of 
that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will 
stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor, over the 
friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if 
fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its 
own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. 



American Literature.— Geimke. 
We cannot honor our country with too deep a rev- 
erence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure 
and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of 
purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and 
ardent. And what is our country? It is not the 
East, with her hills and her valleys, with her count- 
less sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It 
is not the North, with her thousand villages and her 
harvest home, with her frontiers of the lake and the 
ocean. It is not the West, with her forest sea and 
inland isles, with her luxuriant expanses clothed in 
the verdant corn, with her beautiful Ohio and her 



164 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent 
in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich planta- 
tions of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of 
the rice-field. What are these but the sister families 
of one greater, better, holier family — our country? 

If, indeed, we desire to behold a literature like that 
which has sculptured with such energy of expression, 
which has painted so faithfully and vividly the crimes, 
the vices, the follies of ancient and modern Europe; 
if we desire that our land should furnish for the orator 
and the novelist, for the painter and the poet, age after 
age, the wild and romantic scenery of war; the glit- 
tering march of armies and the revelry of the camp; 
the shrieks and blasphemies and all the horrors of 
the battle-field, then let us set on high for our 
imitation the blood-stained glories of Napoleon. If 
we desire to unchain the furious passions of jeal- 
ousy and selfishness, of hatred, revenge, and ambi- 
tion, those lions that now sleep harmless in their 
den; if we desire that the lake, the river, the ocean 
should blush with the blood of brothers; that the 
winds should waft from the land to the sea, from the 
sea to the land, the roar and the smoke of battle; that 
the very mountain-tops should become altars for the 
sacrifice of brothers; if we desire that these and such 
as these — the elements, to an incredible extent, of the 
literature of the Old World — should be the elements 
of our literature then, but then only, let us hurl from 
its pedestal the majestic statue of our Union, and scat- 
ter its fragments over all our land. 

But, if we covet for our country the noblest, purest, 
loveliest literature the world has ever seen; such a 
literature as shall honor God and bless mankind; a 
literature whose smiles might play upon an angel's 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 165 

face, whose "tears would not stain an angel's cheek," 
then let us cling to the union of these States with a 
patriot's love, with a scholar's enthusiasm, with a 
Christian's hope. In her heavenly character as a 
holocaust self- sacrificed to God; at the height of her 
glory, as the ornament of a free, educated, peacefu], 
Christian people, American literature will find that 
the intellectual spirit is her very tree of life, and that 
union her garden of paradise. 



Death of Lafayette. — S. S. Peentiss. 

Death, who knocks with equal hand at the door of 
the cottage and the palace gates, has been busy at 
his appointed work. Mourning prevails throughout 
the land, and the countenances of all are shrouded in 
the mantle of regret. Far across the wild Atlantic, 
amid the pleasant vineyards in the sunny land of 
France, there too is mourning, and the weeds of sor- 
row are alike worn by prince and peasant. And 
against whom has the monarch of the tomb turned 
his remorseless dart, that such wide-spread sorrow 
should prevail? Hark! and the agonized voice of 
Freedom, weeping for her favorite son, will tell you 
in strains sadder than those with which she shrieked 
at Kosciusko's fall, that Lafayette, the gallant and 
good, has ceased to live. 

The friend and companion of Washington is no 
more. He who taught the eagle of our country, while 
yet unfledged, to plume his young wing and mate his 
talons with the lion's strength, has taken his flight 
far beyond the stars beneath whose influence he 
fought so well. Lafayette is dead. The gallant ship 
whose pennon has so often bravely streamed above 



166 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

the roar of battle and the tempest's rage has at length 
gone slowly down in the still and quiet waters. Well 
might thou, O death, now recline beneath the laurels 
thou hast won; and for awhile forego thy relentless 
task; for never since, as the grim messenger of al- 
mighty vengeance, thou earnest into the world did a 
more generous heart cease to heave beneath thy chill- 
ing touch, and never will thy insatiable dart be hurled 
against a nobler breast. Who does not feel, at the 
mournful intelligence, as if he had lost something 
cheering from his own path through life — as if some 
bright star at which he had been accustomed frequent- 
ly and fondly to gaze had been suddenly extinguished 
in the firmament? 

The page of history abounds with those who have 
struggled forth from the nameless crowd, and, stand- 
ing forward in the front ranks, challenged the notice 
of their fellow-men. But when, in obedience to their 
bold demand, we examine their claims to our admi- 
ration, how seldom do we find aught that excites our 
respect or commands our veneration! With what 
pleasure do we turn from the contemplation of the 
Csesars and Napoleons of the human race to meditate 
upon the character of Lafayette! We feel proud that 
we belong to the same species, we feel proud that we 
live in the same age, and we feel still more proud that 
our own country drew forth and nurtured those gen- 
erous virtues which went to form a character that, for 
love of liberty, romantic chivalry, unbounded gen- 
erosity arid unwavering integrity, has never had a 
parallel. 

The Lone Star of Texas. — Webb. 
The brilliancy of its dawn gives token of a bright 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 167 

and glorious future. What eye that beheld that star 
arise but became animated aud fired in the gaze upon 
its transcendent beauty, its wavering light, its divine 
struggles to gleam in the ascendant? Its feeble glim- 
mer was first discerned amid the storm and the tem- 
pest; occasionally, as the wrathful clouds would sepa- 
rate, its faint ray of youthful light and hope would 
dart forth, sprinkling, as with the roseate blush of 
morn, the thick panoply of the surrounding gloom, 
and finding its way to the deep recesses of many 
patriot bosom. The thunders of tyranny and the 
storms of oppression being well-nigh exhausted, this 
lone star was seen standing out upon the broad and 
silvery heaven of Texas in solitary but bold relief. 

No sister star was near to lend the light of her 
countenance or greet it with an approving smile. 
Not a beam which emanated from its effulgence was 
borrowed; not a ray of light did it cast over a benight- 
ed land but was given forth from its own brilliant 
and exhaustless orbit. Brighter and purer did it 
shine as it continued to rise and mount into the high 
heaven of hope and promise, but not without some- 
times almost failing to give token of its presence; it 
flickered as with expiring energy over the fierce and 
unequal conflict of Concepcion; it was seen faintly 
glimmering over the gory field of Goliad, and sending 
out the last ray of its hope upon the awful scene of 
the Alamo. 

It moved despondingly through all these scenes of 
bloody strife, presided at each mortal combat, cheered 
the weak and despairing, and shone with fearful dim- 
ness in that hour when the light of mortality of a 
Fannin and his brave companions was submerged 
in the night of eternal infamy. But lo! where next 



168 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

doth gleam this single star ? Over the immortal strug- 
gle of San Jacinto it hangs suspended; its light has 
returned; its rays enkindle with a sweeter, brighter, 
more entrancing fire; the battle rages; the fight is 
desperate, deadly; the neighing of the war-steed, the 
groaning of the dying soldier, the piercing, startling, 
enthusiastic cry of "Remember the Alamo! " all went 
up to heaven in a solemn league, and as they passed 
away "the lone star of Texas" blazed forth in re- 
splendent beauty and brightness, reflecting all over 
the consecrated ground of Jacinto a light in which 
was seen written in blazing capitals, " Victory ! Liberty ! 
Texas is Free!" 

The South During the Revolution. — Hayne, 1830. 

If there be one State in the Union, Mr. President, 
that may challenge comparison with any other for a 
uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion 
to the Union, that State is South Carolina. Sir, from 
the very commencement of the Revolution up to this 
hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she has not 
cheerfully made, no service she has ever hesitated to 
perform. She has adhered to you in your prosperity; 
but in your adversity she has clung to you with more 
than filial affection. No matter what was the condi- 
tion of her domestic affairs, though deprived of her 
resources, divided by parties, or surrounded with dif- 
ficulties, the call of the country has been to her as the 
voice of God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound: 
every man became at once reconciled to his brethren; 
and the sons of Carolina were all seen crowding to- 
gether to the temple, bringing their gifts to the altar 
of their common country. 

What, sir, was the conduct of the South during the 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 169 

Revolution? Sir, I honor New England for her con- 
duct in that glorious struggle; but, great as is Jbke 
praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal 
honor is due to the South. They espoused the quarrel 
of their brethren with a generous zeal which did not 
surfer them to stop to calculate their interest in the 
dispute. Favorites of the mother country, possessed 
of neither ships nor seamen to create a commercial 
rivalship, they might have found in their situation 
a guarantee that their trade would be forever fostered 
and protected by Great Britain. But trampling on 
all considerations either of interest or of safety, they 
rushed into conflict, and, fighting for principle, they 
periled all in the sacred cause of freedom. Never 
was there exhibited in the history of the world high- 
er examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and 
heroic endurance than by the Whigs of South Caro- 
lina during the Revolution. The whole State, from 
the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an over- ' 
whelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry 
perished on the spot where they were produced, or 
were consumed by the foe. The " plains of Carolina " 
drank up the most precious blood of her citizens. 
Black and smoking ruins marked the places which 
had been the habitation of her children. Driven 
from their homes into the gloomy and almost impen- 
etrable swamps, even then the spirit of liberty sur- 
vived; and South Carolina, sustained by the example 
of her Sumters and her Marions, proved by her con- 
duct that, though her soil might be overrun, the spirit 
of her people was invincible. 



Part of Emmet's Defense. 
What have I to say why sentence of death should 



170 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

not be pronounced on me according to law? I have 
nothing to say which can alter your predetermination, 
or that it would become me to say with any view to 
the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to 
pronounce, and which I must abide. But I have that 
to say which interests me more than life, and which 
you have labored, as was necessarily your office in the 
present circumstances of this oppressed country, to 
destroy. I have much to say why my reputation 
should be rescued from the load of false accusation 
and calumny which has been heaped upon it. I do 
not imagine that, seated where you are, your minds 
can be so free from impurity as to receive the least 
impression from what I am going to utter. I have no 
hope that I can anchor my character in the heart of a 
court constituted and trammeled as this is. I only 
wish, and it is the utmost I expect, that your lordships 
may suffer it to float down your memories untainted 
by the foul breath of prejudice until it finds some 
more hospitable harbor to shelter it from the rude 
storm by which it is at present buffeted.* 

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me 
with dishonor! Let no man attaint my memory by 
believing that I could have engaged in any cause but 
that of my country's liberty and independence, or that 
I could have become the pliant minion of power in 
the oppression and miseries of my countrymen. The 
proclamation of the provisional government speaks 
for my views. No inference can be tortured from it 
to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or 
subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I 
would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for 
the same reason that I would resist the domestic ty- 
* Emmet's Defense No. 2 may be introduced after "buffeted." 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 171 

rant. In the dignity of freedom I would have fought 
upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy 
should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. 
And am I, who lived for my country, who have sub- 
jected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watch- 
ful oppressor, and now to the bondage of the grave, 
only to give my countrymen their rights, and my 
country her independence — am I to be loaded with 
calumny, and riot suffered to resent it? No; God for- 
bid! 

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in 
the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them 
in this transitory life, O ever dear and venerated shade 
of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon 
your suffering son, and see if I have, even for a mo- 
ment, deviated from those principles of morality aud 
patriotism which it was your care to instill into my 
youthful mind, and for which I am now to offer up 
my life. 

My lords, you seem impatient for the sacrifice. The 
blood for which you thirst is not congealed by the 
artificial terrors which surround your victim: it cir- 
culates, warmly and unruffled, through the channels 
which God created for nobler purposes, but which 
you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous 
that they cry to Heaven. Be ye patient! I have but 
a few more words to say. I am going to my cold 
and silent grave. My lamp of life is nearly extin- 
guished. My race is run. The grave opens to re- 
ceive me, and I sink into its bosom! I have but one 
request to ask, at my departure from this world: it is 
the charity of silence. Let no man write my epitaph; 
for, as no man who knows my motives dare now vindi- 
cate them, let not prejudice or ignorance calumniate 



172 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

me. Let me lie in my grave with no epitaph above 
my head until other men and other times can do 
justice to my memory. Then, and not till then, let 
my epitaph be written. 



Paet of Emmet's Defense. (No. 2.) 
Were I only to suffer death after being adjudged 
guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and 
meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but 
the sentence of the law which delivers my body to 
the executioner will, through the ministry of that 
law, labor in its own vindication to consign my char- 
acter to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere: 
whether in the sentence of the court or in the catas- 
trophe, posterity must determine. Man dies, but his 
memory lives; that mine may not perish, that it may 
live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize this 
opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the 
charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall 
be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade 
shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes 
who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the 
field, in the defense of their country and of virtue, 
this is my hope: I wish that my memory and name 
may animate those who survive me, while I look 
down with complacency on the destruction of that 
perfidious government which upholds its domina- 
tion by blasphemy of the Most High; which dis- 
plays its power over man as over the beasts of the 
forest; which sets man upon his brother, and lifts 
its hand, in the name of God, against the throat of 
that doomed creature who doubts a little more or a lit- 
tle less than the government standard; a government 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 173 

which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the or- 
phans and the widows it has made. 

I appeal to the immaculate God; I swear by the 
throne of heaven, before which I must shortly appear; 
by the blood of the martyred patriots who have gone 
before me, that my conduct has been, through all 
this peril, and through all my purpose, governed only 
by the convictions which I have uttered, and by no 
other view than the cure and the emancipation of 
my country from the super-inhuman oppression un- 
der which she has too long and too patiently groaned. 
[After several interruptions by Lord Norbury, he 
proceeded.] I have always understood it to be the 
duty of a judge, when a prisoner has been convicted, 
to pronounce the sentence of the law; I have also 
understood that judges sometimes think it their duty 
to hear with patience and to speak with humanity: 
to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer with ten- 
der benignity their opinions of the motives by which 
he was actuated in the crime of which he had been 
found guilty. That a judge has found it his duty so 
to have done, I have no doubt; but where is the 
boasted freedom of your institutions, where is the 
vaunted impartiality, clemency, and mildness of your 
courts of justice, if an unfortunate prisoner, whom 
your policy and not your justice is about to deliver 
into the hands of the executioner, is not suffered to 
explain his motives sincerely and truly, and to vin- 
dicate the principles by which he was actuated? 
My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry 
justice to bow a man's mind by humiliation to the 
purposed ignominy of the scaffold, but worse to me 
than the purposed shame of the scaffold's terrors 
would be the tame endurance of charges and impu- 



174 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

tations laid against me in this court. You, my lord, 
are a judge; I am the supposed culprit! If I stand 
at the bar of this court and dare not vindicate my 
character, what a farce is your justice! If I stand at 
this bar, and dare not vindicate it, how dare you 
calumniate it! Does your sentence of death, which 
your policy inflicts on my body, also condemn my 
tongue to silence and my reputation to reproach? 
Your executioner may abridge the period cf my ex- 
istence; but while I exist I will not cease to vindicate 
my character and motives from your aspersions, and 
as a man to whom fame is dearer than life I will 
make the last use of that life in doing justice to 
that reputation which is to live after me, and which 
is the only legacy I can leave to those I honor and 
love and for whom I am proud to perish. 



Emmet's Defense. (Part 3.) 
I am charged with being an emissary of France! 
An emissary of France! and for what end? It is 
alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my 
country! And for what end? Was this the object of 
my ambition? And is this the mode by which a 
tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No, I 
am no emissary: and my ambition was to hold a 
place among the deliverers of my country, not in 
power, nor in profit, but in the glory of the achieve- 
ment! Sell my country's independence to France! 
Was it for a change of masters? No! but for ambi- 
tion! O my country, had it been personal ambition 
that influenced me, had that been the soul of my ac- 
tions, could I not, by my education and fortune, by 
the rank and consideration of my family, have placed 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 175 

myself amongst the proudest of my oppressors? My 
country was my idol; to it I sacrificed every selfish, 
every endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up 
my life! No, my lord, I acted as an Irishman, deter- 
mined on delivering my country from the yoke of a 
foreign and unrelenting tyrant, from a crimson and 
bloody tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a 
domestic faction which is joint partner and perpetra- 
tor in the patricide; from the ignominy of existing with 
an exterior of splendor and a conscious depravity. 
It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country 
from this doubly-riveted despotism. I wished to put 
her independence beyond the reach of any power on 
earth; I wished to exalt her to that proud station in 
the world. Connection with France was indeed 
intended; but only as far as our mutual interest 
would sanction and require. "Were they to assume any 
authority inconsistent with the purest independence, 
it would be the signal for their destruction. We 
sought aid, and we sought it as we had assurance we 
should obtain it: as auxiliaries in war, and allies in 
peace. Were the French to come as invaders or ene- 
mies, uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should 
oppose them to the utmost of my strength. Yes, my 
countrymen, I should advise you to meet them upon 
the beach, with a sword in one hand and a torch in 
the other ; I would meet them with all the destructive 
fury, and I would animate my countrymen to immo- 
late them in their boats before they had contami- 
nated the soil of my country. If they succeeded in 
landing, and if forced to retire before superior dis- 
cipline, I would dispute every inch of ground, burn 
every blade of grass, and the last intrenchment of 
liberty should be my grave. What I could not do 



176 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

myself, if I should fail, I should leave as a last charge 
to my countrymen to accomplish, for I should feel 
conscious that life, any more than death, is unprof- 
itable when a foreign nation holds my country 
in subjection. But it was not as an enemy that 
the succors of France were to land. I looked in- 
deed for assistance to France; but I wished to 
prove to France and the world that Irishmen de- 
served to be assisted; that they were indignant at 
slavery, and ready to assert the independence and 
liberty of their country. I wished to procure for my 
country the guarantee that Washington procured for 
America; to procure an aid, which by its example 
would be as important as its valor, disciplined and 
gallant, pregnant with science and experience; who 
would perceive the good, and polish the rough points 
of our character. They would come to us as strangers 
and leave us as friends, after sharing oar evils and 
alleviating our burdens. These were my objects, not 
to receive new task-makers, but to expel old tyrants; 
these were my views, and these only become Irishmen. 
I know your most implacable enemies are in the 
bosom of your country. I have been charged with 
that importance in the efforts to emancipate my 
country as to be considered the key-stone of the com- 
bination of Irishmen, or, as your lordship expresses 
it, "the life and blood of the conspiracy." You do 
me honor overmuch; you have given to a subaltern 
all the credit of a superior. There are men engaged 
in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, 
but even to your own conception of yourself, my 
lord; men before the splendor of whose genius and 
virtues I shall bow with respectful deference, and 
who would think themselves dishonored to be called 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 177 

your friend; who would not disgrace themselves by 
shaking your blood-stained hand. 



Cataline's Defiance.— Croly. 

Conscript Fathers! 

I do not rise to waste the night in words; 

Let the Plebeian talk: 'tis not my trade; 

Bat here I stand for right, 

For Koman right; though none, it seems, dare stand 
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there! 
Cling to your master, judges, Romans, slaves! 
His charge is false 

But this I will avow, that I have scorned, 
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong! 
Who brands me on my forehead, breaks my sword, 
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back, 
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts 
The gates of honor on me, turning out 
The Roman from his birthright; and for what? 
To fling your offices to every slave — 
Vipers that creep where man disdains to climb, 
And having wound their loathsome track to the top, 
Of this huge, moldering monument of Rome, 
Hang hissing at the nobler man below! 

Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones; 
Fling down your scepters; take rod and ax, 
And make the murder as you make the law! 
Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free 
From the daily contact of the things I loathe? 
"Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this? 
Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head? 
Banished! I thank you for it. It breaks my chain! 
I held some slack allegiance till this hour, 
12 



178 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

But now my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords! 
I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, 
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs, 
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up. 

But here I stand to scoff you! here, I fling 
Hatred and full defiance in your face! 

Here I devote your senate! I've had wrongs 

To stir a fever in the blood of age, 

Or make an infant's sinews strong as steel. 

This day's the birth of sorrow! This hour's work 

Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my 

lords! 
For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods, 
Shapes hot from Tartarus! — all shames and crimes! 
Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn; 
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup; 
Naked Eebellion, with the torch and ax, 
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones; 
Till Anarchy comes down on you like night, 
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave. 



William Tell and Switzerland. — Knowles. 
Once Switzerland was free! With what a pride 
I used to walk these hills, look up to heaven, 
And bless God that it was so ! It was free ! 
From end to end, from cliff to lake, 'twas free; 
Free as our torrents are that leap our rocks, 
And plow our valleys without asking leave; 
Or, as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow 
In very presence of the regal sun ! 
How happy was I in it then! I loved 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 179 

Its very storms. Ay, often have I sat 
In my boat at night, when midway o'er the lake 
The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge 
The wind came roaring. I have sat and eyed 
The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled 
To see him shake his lightning o'er my head, 
And think I had no master save his own. 

You knew the jutting cliff, round which a track 
Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow 
To such another one, with scanty room 
For two abreast to pass? O'ertaken there 
By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along, 
And while gust followed gust more furiously, 
As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink, 
And I have thought of other lands, whose 
Storms are summer flaws to those of mine, and just 
Have wished me there; the thought that mine was 

free 
Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head 
And cried in thralldom to that furious wind: 
"Blow on! this is the land of liberty! " 



William Tell among the Mountains.— Knowles. 
Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! 
I hold to you the hands you first beheld, 
To show they still are free. Methinks I hear 
A spirit in your echoes answer me, 
And bid your tenant welcome to his home 
Again! O sacred forms, how proud you look! 
How high you lift your heads unto the sky! 
How huge you are! how mighty, and how free! 
Ye are the things that tower, that shine, whose smile 
Makes glad, whose frown is terrible, whose forms, 



180 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Eobed or unrobed, do all the impress wear 
Of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty, 
I'm with you once again. I call to you 
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you, 
To show they still are free. I rush to you 
As though I could embrace you ! 

Scaling yonder peak, 
I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow 
O'er the abyss; his broad-expanded wings 
Lay calm and motionless upon the air, 
As if he floated there without their aid, 
By the sole act of his unlorded will 
That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively 
I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still 
His airy circle, as in the delight 
Of measuring the ample range beneath 
And round about; absorbed, he heeded not 
The death that threatened him. I could not shoot! 
'Twas liberty! I turned my bow aside, 
And let him soar away. 



A Psalm of Life. — Longfellow. 
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 

Life is but an empty dream ! 
For the soul is dead that slumbers, 

And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real! Life is earnest! 

And the grave is not its goal: 
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest," 

Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow 
Is our destined end and way; 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 181 

But to act that each to-morrow 
Find us further than to-day. 

Art is long and time is fleeting, 

And our hearts, though stout and brave, 

Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world's broad field of battle, 

In the bivouac of life, 
Be not like dumb driven cattle! 

Be a hero in the strife! 

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! 

Let the dead past bury its dead! 
Act, act in the living present! 

Heart within and God o'erhead. 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And departing leave behind us 

Foot-prints on the sands of time. 

Foot-prints, that perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, shall take heart again. 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wait. 



Gen. Bain's Beply. 
On behalf of the gallant men before us I accept 
these colors and return to you, and through you to 
the fair donors, our most hearty thanks for the beau- 



182 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

tiful gift and the handsome manner in which it has 
been presented. I feel conscious of the sacred trust 
I assume in receiving from the hands of beauty this 
glorious emblem of human rights; and had I the 
least lingering apprehension that its proud folds 
would ever wave above one coward heart, or trail be- 
neath a conquering foe, I would refuse to accept the 
proffered gift. But, sir, I can accept it with the con- 
fident assurance that they will defend it with a pa- 
triotic zeal which shall infinitely prefer death to dis- 
honor. From the " Old Dominion " they have snuffed 
the scent of battle and caught the shout of victory 
from on high, and are champing at the bit for the 
fight. Tell the fair dames from whom you bear your 
commission that these men will never disgrace that 
Hag ; that they will prize it as the dearest object of a sol- 
dier's affection, the holiest emblem of a just cause, 
and the grandest incentive of a patriotic chivalry. 
Tell them, too, that in the shock of battle, when grim- 
visaged war shall shake his gory locks, bristle his 
angry crest, and send his death-dealing messengers 
thick and fast among their ranks, they will turn their 
eyes to where that banner floats, and, catching fresh 
inspiration from its proud folds, they will march 
with steadier step and stouter heart to the deadly as- 
sault. It will give newer zest to the soldier's joy 
when a field has been won, and soothe the dying 
pangs of those whose blood the victory cost. To you, 
brave men, I commit this banner. To your keeping 
is committed the sacred badge of an oppressed peo- 
ple's rights. Take it and defend it. Defend it with 
your valor and your lives. Defend it for the love 
of those who gave it. Defend it for the honor of 
those who bear it. Let it be to you the never-failing 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 183 

incentive to heroism, the sure harbinger of victory, 
and the symbol o£ an everlasting devotion to a holy 
cause. And should it be your good fortune to fling 
it to the breeze in the face of the foe, then rear with 
your stout arms an impenetrable rampart about it, or 
build with your lifeless bodies a sacred mausoleum 
above it. You may fall, brave men, in defending the 
trust you have this day assumed; but if fall you must, 
you will not fall in vain. You may sleep the silent 
sleep of death on some far off battle-field, mingled 
with the undistinguished dust of thousands more, but 
your name will still live and linger among those for 
whom you died. Nowhere can a man fall more glo- 
riously than in defense of his own liberty and his coun- 
try's honor. In no way can he make his name sweet- 
er to surviving friends. In no way can he invest with 
brighter memory the sod which shall one day cover 
him than to fall battling for his country's freedom. 
The story of your deeds, recalling, as I know they 
will, the well-fought battle-field with all its brilliant 
associations, will send a thrill of sympathy through the 
heart of every true lover of the South, xlnd now, my 
brave boys, with the blessings of age and the bene- 
dictions of patriotic hearts, you go forth to add fresh 
laurels to the chaplet of Tennessee's glory. With one 
parting look to the bright sun, and one prayer to 
heaven, with one glance at that banner which floats 
so gloriously on high, 

Rush on like the young lion 

When he bounds on his prey, 
Let your sword flash on high, 

Fling the scabbard away; 
Rush on like the thunder-bolt 

Over the plain, 
We'll come back in glory, 

Or we'll come not again. 



184 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

The Peoblem of the Hour. — Henry W. Grady. 

Never, sir, lias such a task been given to mortal 
stewardship. Never before in the history of this 
republic has the white race divided on the rights of 
an alien race. The red man was cut down as a weed 
because he hindered the way of the American citizen. 
The yellow man was shut out of this republic because 
he was an alien and inferior. The red man was 
the owner of the land, the yellow man highly civil- 
ized and assimilable ; but they hindered both sections, 
and are gone. But the black mau, affecting but one 
section, is clothed with every privilege of government, 
and pinned to the soil, and my people commanded to 
make good at any hazard and at any cost his full 
and equal heirship of American privilege and pros- 
perity. 

It matters not that other races have been excluded 
and routed, without rhyme or reason. It matters not 
that wherever the whites and blacks have touched, in 
any era or in any clime, there has been irreconcilable 
"violence. It matters not that no two races, however 
similar, have lived anywhere, at any time, on the same 
soil with equal rights in peace. In spite of these 
things we are commanded to make good this change 
of American policy which has not changed American 
prejudice; to make certain here what has elsewhere 
been impossible between whites and blacks, and to 
reverse, under the very worst conditions, the univer- 
sal verdict of racial history. And we are driven to 
this superhuman task with an impatience that brooks 
no delay, a vigor that accepts no excuse, and a sus- 
picion that discourages frankness and sincerity. We 
do not shrink from this trial. It is so interwoven 
with our industrial fabric that we could not clisen- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 185 

tangle it if we would, so bound up in our honora- 
ble obligation to the world that we would not if we 
could. 

Can we solve it? The God who gave it into our 
hands alone can know. But this the weakest and wis- 
est of us do know: we cannot solve it with less than 
your tolerant and patient sympathy; with less than 
the knowledge that the blood that runs through your 
veins is our blood, and that when we have done our 
best, whether the issue be lost or won, we shall feel 
your strong arms about us, and feel the beatings of 
your approving hearts. 

The resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of 
the South — the men whose fathers made glorious every 
page of the first seventy years of American history, 
whose courage and fortitude you tested in four years 
of the fiercest war, whose energy has made bricks 
without straw and spread splendor amid the ashes of 
their war-wasted homes — these men wear this prob- 
lem in their hearts and brains by day and by night. 
They realize, as you cannot, what this problem means 
— what they owe to this kindly and dependent race — 
the measure of their debt to the world in wdiose de- 
spite they defended and maintained slavery. And 
though their feet are hindered in its undergrowth, 
and their march encumbered with its burdens, they 
have lost neither the patience from which comes 
clearness nor the faith from which comes courage. 
Nor, sir, when in passionate moments is disclosed to 
them that vague and awful shadow, with its lurid 
abysses and its crimson stains, into which I pray God 
they may never go, are they struck with more of ap- 
prehension than is needed to complete their conse- 
cration. 



186 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Eolla's Speech. — Sheridan. 
My brave associaties! partners of my toil, my feel- 
ings, and my fame! can Holla's words add vigor to 
the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts ? No ; 
you have judged as I have, the foulness of the crafty 
plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. 
Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the 
motives which, in a war like this, can animate their 
minds and ours. They, by a strange frenzy driven, 
fight for power, plunder, and extended rule; ice for our 
country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an 
adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which 
they hate; we serve a monarch whom we love, a God 
whom we adore. Where'er they move in anger, deso- 
lation tracks their progress! Where'er they pause in 
amity, affliction mourns their friendship ! They boast 
they come to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, 
and free us from the yoke of error! Yes, they will 
give enlightened freedom to our minds who are them- 
selves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride. They 
offer us their protection. Yes, such protection as 
vultures give to lambs, covering and devouring them! 
They call on us to barter all of good we have inher- 
ited and proved, for the desperate chance of something 
better which they promise. Be our plain answer this : 
The throne we honor is the people's choice, the laws 
we reverence are oar brave fathers' legacy, the faith 
we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with 
all mankind and die with the hope of bliss beyond the 
grave. Tell your invaders this; and tell them, too, we 
seek no change, and, least of all, such change as they 
would bring us. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 187 

Centennial Address.— Judge Story. 

The old world has already revealed to us in its un- 
sealed books the beginning and the end of all its 
marvelous struggles in the cause of liberty. Greece, 
lovely Greece, " the land of scholars and the nurse of 
arms," where sister republics in fair processions 
chanted the praises of liberty and the gods; where 
and what is she? For two thousand years the op- 
pressor has bound her to the earth. Her arts are 
no more. The last sad relics of her temples are but 
the barracks of a ruthless soldiery; the fragments 
of her palaces and her columns ar 4 e in the dust, yet 
beautiful in ruin. She fell not when the mighty 
were upon her. Her sons were united at Thermop- 
ylae and Marathon, and the tide of her triumph 
rolled back upon the Hellespont. She fell, conquered 
by her factions and by the hands of her own people. 

Rome, republican Rome, whose eagles glanced in 
the rising and setting sun, where and what is she? 
The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her des- 
olation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty 
of religion, and calm as in the composure of death. 
The malaria has but traveled in the paths worn by 
her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have 
mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal dis- 
ease was upon her vitals before Caesar crossed the 
Rubicon. The Goths and Yandals and Huns, the 
swarms of the north completed only what was begun 
at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The legions 
were bought and sold, but the people offered the trib- 
ute money. 

And where are the republics of modern times 
which clustered around immortal Italy? Venice and 
Genoa exist but in name. The Alps, indeed, look 



188 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

down upon the brave and peaceful Swiss, in their 
native fastness, but the guaranty of their freedom is 
in their weakness and not in their strength. Nature 
presents her eternal barriers on every side, to check 
the wantonness of ambition; and Switzerland remains 
with her simple institutions, a military road to fairer 
climates, protected by the jealousy of her neighbors. 



"If He Live till Sundown To-moeeow, He Will 
Get Well."— Heney W. Geady. 

A soldier lay wounded in a hard-fought field; the 
roar of the battle had died away, and he rested in 
the deadly stillness of its aftermath. Not a sound 
was heard as he lay there, sorely smitten and speech- 
less, but the shriek of the wounded and the sigh of 
the dying soul as it escaped from the tumult of earth 
into the unspeakable peace of the stars. Off over the 
field flickered the lanterns of the surgeons, with their 
litter-bearers, searching that they might take away 
those whose lives could be saved, and leave in sorrow 
those who were doomed to die with pleading eyes 
through the darkness. 

This poor soldier watched, unable to move or speak, 
as the lantern drew nearer. At last the light flashed 
in his face, and the surgeon, with kindly glance, bent 
over him, hesitated a moment, shook his head, and 
was gone, leaving the poor fellow alone with death. 
He watched in patient agony as they went on from 
one part of the field to another. As they came back 
the surgeon bent over him again. "I believe if this 
poor fellow lives till sundown to-morrow, he will get 
well," again leaving him not with death, but with 
hope. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 189 

All night long those words fell into his heart, as 
the dews fell from the stars upon his lips: " If he but 
live till sundown, he will get well." He turned his 
weary head to the east, and watched for the coming 
sun. At last the stars went out, the east trembled 
with radiance, and the sun, slowly lifting above the 
horizon, tinged his pallid face with flame. He 
watched it inch by inch as it climbed slowly up the 
heavens. He thought of life, its hopes and ambitions, 
its sweetness and its raptures, and he fortified his 
soul against despair until the sun had reached high 
noon. It sloped down its slow descent, and his life 
was ebbing away, and his heart was faltering, and he 
needed stronger stimulants to make him stand the 
struggle until the end of the day had come. He 
thought of his far off home — the blessed house resting 
in tranquil peace with the roses climbing to its door, 
and the trees whispering to its windows, and the or- 
chard dozing in the sunshine, and the little brook 
running like a silver thread through the forest. " If 
I live till sundown, I shall see it again. I will walk 
again down the shady lane. I will open the battered 
gate, and the mock-bird shall call to me from the 
orchard, and I will drink again at the old mossy 
spring." And he thought of the wife that had come 
from the neighboring farm-house and put her hand 
shyly in his, and brought sweetness to his life and 
light to his home. " If I live till sundown, I shall 
look once more into her deep and loving eyes, and 
press her brown head once more to my aching 
breast." And he thought of his old father, patient 
in prayer, bending lower and lower every year with 
his load of sorrow and old age. " If I but live till 
sundown, I shall see him again and wind my strong 



190 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

arms about his feeble body, and his hands shall rest 
on my head while the unspeakable healing of his 
blessing falls into my heart." And he thought of the 
little children that clambered on his knees and tan- 
gled their little hands in his heart-strings, making 
him such music as the world shall not equal or heaven 
surpass. "HI live till sundown, they shall again find 
my parched lips with their warm mouths, and their 
little fingers shall run once more over my face." 
And he then thought of his old mother, who gathered 
these children about her, and breathed her old heart 
afresh in their brightness, and attuned her old lips 
anew to their prattle, that she might live till her big 
boy came home. " If I live till sundown, I will see 
her again, and I will rest my head at my old place on 
her knees, and weep away all memory of this desolate 
night." And the Son of God who died for men, bend- 
ing from the stars, put the hand that had been nailed 
to the cross upon the ebbing life, and he held on the 
stanch until the sun went down, and the stars came 
out and shone down on the brave man's heart, and 
blurred in his glistening eyes, and the lantern of the 
surgeon came, and he was taken from death to life. 

The world is a battle-field strewn with the wrecks 
of governments and institutions, of theories and of 
faiths, that have gone down in the ravage of years. 
On this battle-field lies the South, sown with her 
problems. Amid the carnage walks the great Physi- 
cian. Over the Pouth he bends. If ye shall live till 
sundown, ye shall endure, my countrymen. Let us 
then turn our faces to the east and watch as the sol- 
dier watched for the coming sun. Let us stanch 
her wounds and hold steadfast. The sun mounts 
the skies. As it descends to us, minister to her and 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 191 

stand constant at her side, for the sake of onr chil- 
dren and the generations nnborn that shall suffer if 
she fail. And when the sun has gone down and the 
day of her probation is ended, and the stars have rallied 
her heart, the lantern shall be swung over the field, 
and the great Physician shall lead her up from trouble 
into content, from suffering into peace, from death to 
life. Let every man here pledge himself in this high 
and ardent hour, as I pledge myself; every man, hand 
to hand and heart to heart, that in death and earnest 
loyalty, in patient and painstaking care, he will watch 
her interest, advance her fortunes, defend her fame, 
and guard her honor as long as life shall last. Every 
man under the sound of my voice, under the deep 
consecration he owes to the Union, will consecrate 
himself to the South. Have no ambition but to be 
first at her feet and last at her service ; no hope but, 
after a long life of devotion, to sink into sleep in her 
bosom as a little child sleeps at its mother's breast 
and rests untroubled in the light of her smile. 



Young Men and Temperance.— Cuyler. 
During the next quarter of this century the moral 
destiny of the world depends upon the youth of this 
present age. The strong hands of the veterans are, 
one by one, palsied by the touch of age. The voices 
that have rung out for God and truth are slowly 
passing into the harmonies of a better world. Upon 
your shoulders the ark of reform is hence to rest. In 
your hands the torch of human progress is to be 
borne onward. The God of love stood by the tem- 
perance reform from its cradle and guided it onward 
through its most critical periods. To the young men 



192 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

of our time it is now committed, both as a trial and 
as a trust. What is it that God and humanity demand 
of us? What is the great question for our practical 
solution? Unless we greatly err, that question sim- 
ply is: Shall we, by Jehovah's help, destroy the traf- 
fic in intoxicating poisons ? or shall they destroy us ? 
Shall we send alcohol to his grave, or permit him to 
send a myriad of our comrades to their own? Shall 
we consent to have the most brilliant intellects among 
us any longer extinguished? Shall we permit the fair 
bride of to-day to become the desolate widow of to- 
morrow? Shall we stand idly by and see the noblest 
of our brotherhood go down to darkness and the 
worm? Shall we suffer this monster evil to cast its 
hideous shadow athwart the rays that fall from Cal- 
vary itself? or shall we, hand in hand, join in the strug- 
gle against it? The destiny of millions hangs upon 
our answer. 

The determination of this question demands great 
plainness of speech, as well as earnestness in action. 
Let us learn to speak right out. The press that is 
silent upon this subject deserves a place in the cellars 
of Herculaneum. The legislator wdio has not studied 
it is unworthy of the seat he incumbers. The orator is 
to point his shafts, the voter must aim his ballots, and 
the philanthropist direct his prayerful efforts straight 
toward this as the grand moral question of the age. 

Comrades in this sublime warfare, we are com- 
passed about with a great cloud of witnesses. Hu- 
manity beckons onward. We tread upon the dust of 
heroes as we advance. White-robed love, floating in 
mid-air before us, leads us to the conflict. The shouts 
of the ransomed are in our tents, and the voice of 
praise makes music amid our banners. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 193 

Let us press forward with our age. Let us wear a 
bright link in the history of our country. Let us lie 
down to our rest nearer to the goal of human perfec- 
tion. Let us find in our toils an ever exciting stim u- 
lus, an ever fresh delight. So shall our posterity be 
cheered by that sun which shall shine with a seven- 
fold luster, as " the light of seven days." 



The Corrupters of Youth Abandon Their Vic- 
tims. — Beecher. 
Kemember, young men, if evil men entice you to 
ruin, you will have to bear it alone. They are strong to 
seduce, but heartless to sustain their victims. They 
will exhaust your means, teach you to despise the 
God of your fathers, lead you into every vice, go with 
you while you afford them any pleasure or profit; and 
then, when the inevitable disaster of wickedness be- 
gins to overwhelm you, they will abandon whom they 
have debauched. When at length death gnaws at 
your bones and knocks at your heart; when stagger- 
ing and worn out, your courage wasted, your hope 
gone, your purity and long, long ago your peace gone 
— will he who first enticed your steps now serve your 
extremity with one office of kindness? Will he stay 
your head, cheer your dying agony with one word of 
hope, or light the way for your coward steps to the 
grave, or weep when you are gone, or send one piti- 
ful scrap to your desolate family? What reveler 
wears crape for a dead drunkard? what gang of gam- 
blers ever intermitted a game for the death of a com- 
panion or went on missions of relief to broken-down 
fellow-gamblers? what harlot weeps for a harlot? 
what debauchee mourns a debauchee? They would 
13 



194 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

carouse at your funeral and gamble on your coffin. 
If one flush more of pleasure were to be had by it, 
they would drink shame and ridicule to your memory 
out of your own skull, and roar in bacchanal revelry 
over your damnation. 

A Midnight Mukdee. — Anonymous. 
'Twas night! and the stars were shrouded in a veil 
of mist; a cloudy canopy overhung the world, the 
vivid lightnings flashed and shook their fiery darts 
upon the earth, the deep-toned thunder rolled along 
the vaulted sky, the elements were in commotion, the 
the storm-spirit howled in the air, the winds whistled, 
the hail-stones fell like leaden balls, the huge undu- 
lations of the ocean dashed against the rock-bound 
shore, and torrents leaped from the mountain-tops; 
when the murderer sprung from his sleepless couch 
with vengeance on his brow, murder in his heart, and 
the fell instrument of destruction in his hand. The 
storm increased, the lightnings flashed with brighter 
glare, the thunder growled with a deeper energy, the 
winds whistled with a wilder fury, the confusion of 
the hour was congenial to his soul and the stormy 
passions which raged within his bosom. He clinched 
his weapon with a sterner grasp; a demoniac smile 
gathered on his lip; he grated his teeth, raised his 
arm, sprung with a yell of triumph on his victim, and 
relentlessly killed — a bed-bug. 



Washington and Clay.— Charlton. 
Above the bosom of the broad Potomac a hill lifts 
its head on high and throws its shadows on the danc- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 195 

ing wave. There, on that gentle declivity is a vault, 
and there, fast moldering into dust, is a noble and 
gallant heart that throbbed once with the purest pa- 
triotism, the highest, loftiest courage. There withers 
the arm that struck down the hosts of the enemy and 
flung to the breeze the banner of our freedom. There 
the feet are at rest that plunged through ice and snow, 
that trod the burning sands; and the mind that con- 
ceived, and the spirit that nourished, and the iron 
energy that executed, and the bold and noble man 
whose form contained all these, and to whom, under 
God, we this day owe our greatness and glory — all are 
buried there. No unhallowed foot tramples upon 
that sacred soil. The rude laugh is hushed and the 
fierce strife restrained; and with tearful eyes and un- 
covered brows generations have stood, and generations 
will stand, around and about the grave of Washington. 

And why? Was it simply because he was a mighty 
warrior? So was Napoleon. Was it because he 
struck boldly for his country's banner? So did thou- 
sands besides him. It was these, but it was more : it 
was because he added to his powerful mind the pure 
and lofty principles of morality, and crowned the rest 
by a heavenly faith, a confiding hope, a holy life. 

Never be ashamed, my young friends, of being es- 
teemed religious. If any mock you, if any ask you 
what courageous, what noble mind has ever embraced 
its holy teachings, point them to that tomb, beside 
yon bounding river, and answer: "Washington." 

Another name should here be mentioned. The 
tears are still in the eyes of this great nation, the 
heart of our country is still throbbing with unfeigned 
sorrow at the loss of one who was chief among the 
orators, the patriots, the sages of America. Amid the 



196 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

pride of station, the crowd of honors, the cheering 
uproar of applause, surrounded by prosperity, by 
friends, by fame, the still small voice of the messen- 
ger from heaven whispered to his heart: "All this is 
not thy rest: follow thou me." And he obeyed; first 
doubtfully, then willingly, and at the close gladly; 
and so life sweetly, beautifully passed away, leaving 
the name of Henry Clay dear to us for his brave and 
patriotic and splendid achievements, but dearer to the 
Christian heart for the humility and faith and hope 
which clustered around life's closing scenes. 



Speech on the Trial of a Murderer. — Daniel 
Webster. 

Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I 
cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do 
him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not 
affect to be indifferent to the discovery and punish- 
ment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the 
opprobium, how much soever it may be ; which is cast 
on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern 
that all who had a part in planning or a hand in ex- 
ecuting this deed of midnight assassination may be 
brought to answer for their euormous crime at the bar 
of public justice. 

This is a most extraordinary case. In some re- 
spects it has no precedent anywhere; certainly none 
in our New England history. This bloody drama 
exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. 
The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like 
temptation upon their virtue, overcoming it before 
resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to 
glut savage vengeance, or to satiate long-settled and 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 197 

deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-mak- 
ing murder. It was all " hire and salary, and not 
revenge." It was the weighing of money against life, 
the counting out of so many pieces of silver for so 
many ounces of blood. 

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his 
own house and in his own bed, is made the victim of 
butcherly murder for mere pay. 

Truly here is a new lesson for painters and poets. 
Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, 
if he will show it as it has been exhibited in a spot 
where least to have been looked for, here in the very 
bosom of our New England society, let him not give 
it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by 
revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the 
blood-shot eye emitting livid fires of malice; let him 
draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless de- 
mon; a picture in repose rather than in action; not 
so much an example of human nature in its deprav- 
ity and in its paroxysms of crime as an infernal nat- 
ure, a fiend in the ordinary display and development 
of his character. 

The deed was executed with a degree of self-pos- 
session and steadiness equal to the wickedness with 
which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly 
in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. 
Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim and on 
all beneath his roof. A healthful old man to whom 
sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night 
held him in their soft but strong embrace. The as- 
sassin enters through the window, already prepared, 
into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot 
he paces a lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he 
winds up the ascent of the stairs and reaches the door 



19S THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft 
and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges, and 
he enters and beholds his victim before him. The 
room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. 
The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the 
murderer, and the beams of the moon resting on the 
gray locks of his aged temple showed him where to 
strike. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes 
without a struggle or a motion from the repose of 
sleep to the repose of death. 

It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and 
he yet plies the dagger, though it is obvious that life 
had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He 
even raises the aged arm that he may not fail in his 
aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wound 
of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores 
the wrist for the pulse. He feels it and ascertains 
that it beats no longer. The deed is done. He re- 
treats, he retraces his steps to the window, passes out 
through it as he came in, and escapes. No eye has 
seen him; no ear has heard him. The secret is his 
own, and he is free! 

Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such 
a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of 
God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can 
bestow it and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye 
which glances through all disguises and beholds every 
thing as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt 
are never safe from detection, even by men. True it 
is that " murder will out." True it is that providence 
hath so ordained and doth so govern things that those 
who break the great law of heaven by shedding men's 
blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. A thou- 
sand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 199 

thing, every circumstance connected with the time 
and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a 
thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, 
shedding all their light, and ready to kindle, at the 
slightest circumstance, into a blaze of discovery. 

Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own se- 
cret. It is false to itself, or rather it feels an irresist- 
ible impulse to be true to itself. It labors under its 
guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. 
The human heart was not made for the residence of 
such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a 
torment which it does not acknowledge to God nor 
man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no 
sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. 
The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes 
to possess him ; and, like the evil spirits of which we 
read, it overcomes him and leads him whithersoever 
it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his 
throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the 
whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and 
almost hears its workings in the very silence of his 
thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his 
discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers 
his prudence. When suspicions from without begin 
to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to 
entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still 
greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, 
it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confes- 
sion but suicide, and suicide is confession. 



Soliloquy of Henky IV. — Shakespeake. 
O sleep, gentle sleep, 
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee 
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 



200 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

And steep my senses in f orgetf ulness ? 

Why, rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 

And hushed with buzzing night flies to thy slumber, 

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 

Under the canopies of costly state, 

And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody? 

O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile, 

In loathesome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch, 

A watch-case to a common 'larum bell? 

Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, 

Seal up the ship boy's eyes, and rock his brains 

In cradle of the rude, imperious surge; 

And, in the visitation of the winds, 

Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 

With deafening clamors in the slippery shrouds, 

That, with the hurly, Death itself awakes? 

Canst thou, O partial Sleep ! give thy repose 

To the wet sea boy, in an hour so rude, 

And in the calmest and the stillest night, 

With all appliances and means to boot, 

Deny it to a king? Then, happy, lowly clown! 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 



The Closing Yeak.— Pkentice. 
'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now 
Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er 
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds 
The bell's deep tones are swelling; 'tis the knell 
Of the departed year. No funeral train 
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood, 
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest, 
Like a pale and spotless shroud; the air is stirred 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 201 

As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud, 

That floats so still and placidly through heaven, 

The spirits of the seasons seem to stand — 

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, 

And Winter, with his aged locks — and breathe 

In mournful cadences, that come abroad 

Like the far wind harp's wild, touching wail, 

A melancholy dirge, o'er the dead year, 

Gone from the earth forever. 

'Tis a time 
For memory and for tears. Within the deep, 
Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, 
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of time 
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold 
And solemn finger to the beautiful 
And holy visions that have passed away, 
And left no shadow of their loveliness 
In the dead waste of life. That specter lifts 
The coffin lid of Hope and Joy and Love, 
And bending mournfully above the pale, 
Sweet forms that slumber, scatters dead flowers 
O'er what has passed to nothingness. 

The year 
Has gone, and with it many a glorious throng 
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, 
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course 
It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful, 
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand 
Upon the strong man; and the haughty form 
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. 
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged 
The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail 
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song 
And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er 



202 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

The battle plain, where sword and spear and shield 
Flashed in the light of midday; and the strength 
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, 
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above 
The crushing and moldering skeleton. It came, 
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve; 
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, 
It heralded its millions to their home 
In the dim land of dreams. 

Remorseless Time! 
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power 
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
His iron heart to pity. On, still on 
He presses, and forever. The proud bird, 
The condor of the Andes, that can soar 
Through heaven's unfathomable depth, or brave 
The fury of the northern hurricane, 
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, 
Furls his broad wing at night-fall, and sinks down 
To rest upon his mountain crag; but Time 
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, 
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 
His rushing pinion. 

Revolutions sweep 
O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast 
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink 
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles 
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back 
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear 
To heaven their bold and blackened cliffs, and bow 
Their tall heads to the plain; and empires rise, 
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, 
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, 
Startling the nations; and the very stars, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 203 

Yon bright and glorious blazonry of God, 
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths, 
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away 
To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time, 
Time, the tomb-builder, holds its fierce career, 
Dark, stern, all pitiless, and pauses not 
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path, 
To sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
Upon the fearful ruin he had wrought. 



The Dying Alchemist. — Willis. 
The night wind with a desolate moan swept by, 
And the old shutters of the turret swung 
Screaming upon their hinges; and the moon, 
As the torn edges of the cloud flew past, 
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes 
So dimly that the watchful eye of death 
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came. 
The fire beneath his crucible was low, 
Yet still it burned; and ever, as his thoughts 
Grew insupportable, he raised himself 
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals 
With difficult energy; and when the rod 
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye 
Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back 
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips 
Muttered a curse on death ! The silent room 
From its dim corners mockingly gave back 
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire 
Had the distinctness of a knell ; and when 
Duly the antique horologe beat one, 
He drew a vial from beneath his head, 



204 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

And drank; and instantly his lips compressed, 
And with a shudder in his skeleton frame 
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat 
Upright, and communed with himself: 

"I did not think to die 
Till I had finished what I had to do ; 
I thought to pierce the eternal secret through 

With this my mortal eye. 
I felt— O God! it seemeth even now, 
This cannot be the death-dew on my brow; 

And yet it is; I feel 
Of this dull sickness at my heart afraid; 
And in my eyes the death sparks flash and fade, 

And something seems to steal 
Over my bosom like a frozen hand, 
Binding its pulses with an icy band. 

And this is death! But why 
Feel I this wild recoil? It cannot be 
The immortal spirit shuddereth to be free! 

Would it not leap to fly, 
Like a chained eaglet, at its parent's call? 
I fear, I fear that this poor life is all! 

Yet thus to pass away ! 
To live but for a hope that mocks at last! 
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast, 

To waste the light of day, 
Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought, 
All that we have and are, for this! for naught! — 

Grant me another year, 
God of my spirit! but a day, to win 
Something to satisfy this thirst within ! 

I would know something here. 
Break for me but one seal that is unbroken! 
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken ! 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 205 

Vain, vain! my head is turning 
With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick, 
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick, 

And I am freezing, burning, 
Dying! O God, if I might only live! 
My vial! — ha, it thrills me; I revive. 

Ay, were not man to die, 
He were too glorious for this narrow sphere! 
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here, 

Could he but train his eye, 
Might he but wait the mystic word and hour, 
Only his Maker would transcend his power! 

Earth has no mineral strange, 
The illimitable air no hidden wings, 
Water no quality in its covert springs, 

And fire no power to change, 
Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell, 
Which the unwasting soul might not compel. 

O but for time to track 
The upper stars into the pathless sky; 
To see the invisible spirits, eye to eye; 

To hurl the lightning back; 
To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls; 
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon's walls; 

And more, much more (for now 
The life sealed fountains of my nature move); 
To nurse and purify this human love; 

To clear the godlike brow 
Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down, 
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one. 

This were indeed to feel 
The soul thirst slaken at the living stream; 
To live — O God! that life is but a dream; 

And death — Aha! I reel — 



206 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Dim — dim — I faint — darkness comes over my eye; 
Cover me! save me! God of heaven! I die! " 



Alcohol. 
What is alcohol, that fiery principle in all spiritu- 
ous liquors? and whence is it obtained? Is it one of 
those good things which a bounteous Providence has 
given for the comfort and happiness of man ? Ask nat- 
ure in all her wide domain, explore her secret laborato- 
ries, for this mighty agent, and the indignant response 
reverberates through the deep caverns of earth : " It is 
not in me." Neither the mineral, animal, or vegetable 
world know aught of alcohol. Chemistry has never 
yet found it one among the compounds built up by 
plants. The solar beam which reaches like the finger 
of God across the abyss of space, and in the labora- 
tory of vegetation takes to pieces poisonous gases and 
puts together their atoms in new groups, which are 
capable of nourishing the animal body; this celestial 
force never arranged together the atoms that form 
alcohol. On the contrary, it is a production of disso- 
lution — of the wreck and decomposition of the prin- 
ciples of human food. It is the result not of growth, 
but of decay; not of life, but of death. It has the 
same origin as those malignant and fatal exhalations 
which constitute the germs of pestilence, the death 
and putrefaction of organic matter. It no more forms 
a part of the cereal grains from the decay and decom- 
position of which it may be obtained than does the 
deadly miasmata that arise from putrid vegetation. 



American Progress.— Hilliard. 
Our progress has more than transcended that of 
the fabled god of the ancients, who, beginning his 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 207 

morning journey in the east, drove his flaming chariot 
through the sky until he dipped his glowing axle in 
the western waves. Behind us have sprung up all the 
blessings of a high civilization; nor will they disap- 
pear beneath the waves of that placid ocean which we 
have reached in our march. There they will grow 
and flourish, and the kindly luster will spread over 
the Polynesian island and gild the distant shores of 
Asia with a richer and purer splendor than they ever 
enjoyed before. 

We are yet in the freshness of our youth; our coun- 
try, the latest born of the great nations, is like the 
youngest daughter of King Lear, the fairest of the 

sisters : 

Ah! mayst thou ever be what thou now art, 
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring. 

The horoscope which shone so resplendently over 
thy birth, O my country, announced a glorious des- 
tiny. We have witnessed its grand fulfillment. 
Berkeley's vision, revealed in poetic measures, is fully 

realized — 

Time's noblest offspring is the last. 

A powerful nation, in the full vigor of her youth, 
unfurls the banner of freedom, and its mighty folds 
float over a continent. Thrown out at first against a 
stormy sky, and in defiance of tyrants, it is bathed 
to-day in the light of peace; the eyes of all mankind 
are fixed upon it as the sign of hope. Shall it be 
rent asunder? Shall its stars be quenched and its 
folds droop? Shall it live in the memory of mankind 
only as the sign of fallen power and departed glory? 
No! no! let it float forever the standard of a republic, 
the proudest, the happiest, the greatest which the 
world has ever beheld. Let the sun, as he rises out 



208 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

of the Atlantic wave, gild it with his morning beam; 
let him throw his parting splendor upon it as it sinks 
beneath the placid waters of the Pacific, its gorgeous 
folds still streaming with undiminished luster over 
States free, powerful, and prosperous, associated in a 
Union as indissoluble as it is glorious. 



Honor to Our Workmen. — H. Clay Preuss. 
Whom shall we call our heroes, 

To whom our praises sing? 
The pampered child of fortune, 

The titled lord or king? 
They live by others' labor, 

Take all, and nothing give; 
The noblest types of manhood 

Are they who work to live. 

Who spans the earth with iron, 

And rears the palace dome? 
Who fashions for the rich man 

The comforts of his home? 
It is the patient toiler; 

All honor to him then! 
The true wealth of a nation 

Is in her working-men. 

For many barren ages 

Earth hid her treasures deep, 
And all her giant forces 

Seemed bound as in a sleep; 
Then labor's " anvil chorus " 

Broke on the startled air, 
And lo! the earth in rapture 

Laid all her riches bare! 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 209 

'Tis toil that over nature 

Gives man his proud control; 
And purines and hallows 

The temple of his soul; 
It scatters foul diseases, 

With all their ghastly train, 
Puts iron in the muscle 

And crystal in the brain. 

The grand, almighty Builder, 

Who fashioned out the earth, 
Hath stamped his seal of honor 

On labor from her birth. 
In every angel flower 

That blossoms from the sod, 
Behold the master-touches, 

The handiwork of God! 

Then, honor to our workmen, 

Our hardy sons of toil, 
The heroes of the workshop 

And monarchs of the soil! 



Death of Hamilton. — Dr. Mason. 

Sad, my fellow-citizens, are the recollections and 
forebodings which the present solemnities force upon 
the mind. Five years have not elapsed since your 
tears flowed for the father of your country, and you 
are again assembled to shed them over her eldest son. 
No, it is not an illusion ; would to God it were! Your 
eyes behold it; the urn which bore the ashes of Wash- 
ington is followed by the urn which bears the ashes 
of Hamilton. 

Fathers, friends, countrymen! the grave of Hamil- 
14 



210 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

ton speaks. It charges me to remind you that lie fell 
a victim not to disease or accident, not to the fortune 
of glorious warfare, but — how shall I utter it? — to a 
custom which has no origin but superstition, no ali- 
ment but depravity, no reason but in madness. Alas ! 
that he should thus expose his precious life. This 
was his error; a thousand bursting hearts reiterate, 
this was his error. 

Shall I apologize? I am forbidden by his living 
protestations, by his dying regrets, by his wasted 
blood. Shall a solitary act, into which he was be- 
trayed and dragged, have the authority of a prece 
dent? The plea is precluded by the long decisions 
of his understanding, by the principles of his con- 
science, and by the reluctance of his heart. Ah! 
when will our morals be purified, and an imaginary 
honor cease to cover the most pestilent of human 
passions? 

My appeal is to military men. Your honor is sa- 
cred. Is it honorable to enjoy the esteem of the wise 
and the good? The wise and good turn with disgust 
from the man who lawlessly aims at his neighbor's life. 
Is it honorable to serve your country? That man 
cruelly injures her who from private pique calls his 
fellow-citizen into the dubious field. 

Is fidelity honorable? The man forswears his faith 
who turns against the hearts of his countrymen weap- 
ons put into his hands for their defense. Are gener- 
osity, humanity, sympathy honorable? The man is 
superlatively base who mingles the tears of the 
widow and orphan with the blood of a husband 
and father. Do refinement and courtesy and benig- 
nity entwine with the laurels of the brave? The blot 
is yet to be wiped from the soldier's name, that he 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 211 

cannot treat his brother with the decorum of a gen- 
tleman unless the pistol or the dagger be every 
moment at his heart. Let the votaries of honor now 
look at their deed. Let them compare their doctrine 
with this horrible comment. 

My countrymen, the land is defiled with blood un- 
righteously shed. Its cry, disregarded on earth, has 
gone up to the throne of God; and this day does our 
punishment reveal our sin. It is time for us to awake. 
The voice of moral virtue, the voice of domestic alarm, 
the voice of the fatherless and widow, the voice of a 
nation's wrong, the voice of Hamilton's blood, the 
voice of impending judgment, calls for a remedy. 



An Eloquent Peeoeation. — Keveedy Johnson. 

Is the cause one that justifies or excuses a refusal 
to associate politically with Northern brethren? If it 
is, where will it lead? No sane man can believe that 
such legislation can now be obtained. If not, the 
remedy, and the only one left to the South, unless she 
is false to her professed convictions of duty, and acts 
the mere braggart, is secession from Congress, and 
of course from the Union. Is this mere theoretical, 
abstract question to sunder the ties which have so 
long and gloriously kept us together and made us a 
nation the wonder and admiration of the world ? May 
the memory and spirit of our fathers forbid it! May 
the hope of freedom throughout Christendom not be 
blasted by it! May so foul a dishonor never be suf- 
fered to tarnish the American name! O that Choate 
and Webster were living to animate the hearts of 
their countrymen with their own patriotic fire, and 
invoke them, as they surely would, to gather around 



212 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

the Union, and upon its altars swear perpetual alle- 
giance to it. O that they were now here, to fill this 
hall once more in this their country's trial with their 
lessons of wisdom and duty, and to commend them to 
national approval by their almost superhuman elo- 
quence! But the hope is vain. Let us, therefore, 
stimulated by the memories of the great dead, nerve 
ourselves to the struggle. Let us, standing by the 
rights of all under the Constitution, maintain those 
rights with untiring devotion and with scrupulous 
good faith. Let us do all we can to restore our an- 
cient harmony, our former fraternity, and, discarding 
all sectional prejudices, demonstrate to the world that 
we recognize as countrymen the whole people of the 
United States, that we know but one country — that 
which is now covered by one glorious ensign of all 
the stripes and stars — that we will now and forever 
support the government formed by our fathers for 
the common defense and general welfare, and to se- 
cure to them and their posterity the blessings of lib- 
erty forever. 

Virginia. — D. W. Yooehees. 
Yirginia teaches no doubtful lesson on the subject 
of her devotion to the Constitution and the Union. 
Happy are they who sit at her feet and learn wisdom 
from her precepts. She is rich in historical renown. 
She rocked the cradle of the Union and defended the 
infant Hercules from the grasp of the serpent. 
Within her bosom repose the ashes of those most il- 
lustrious in the cause of liberty since the song of Mi- 
riam arose as a song of deliverance on the banks of 
the Red Sea. The curious traveler threads his way 
amongst the tombs of Westminster Abbey, and on 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 213 

either hand sleep kings, conquerors, princes, poets, 
statesmen, historians, and philosophers. In that sol- 
emn pile genius rests from its brilliant triumphs and 
its exquisite sorrows, and eloquence and learning hal- 
low the spot with the glory of intellectual excellence. 
But the modest eminence of Mount Yernon and the 
quiet heights of Monticello contain more precious 
dust than was ever treasured away in the " storied 
urn " of human greatness or the royal sepulcher of 
kings. The soil of this ancient and revered common- 
wealth is rich with the shrines of the mighty. Her 
children have been the tall spirits of the earth, and 
every mountain is full of thrilling memories. The 
drama of the Revolution closed within her borders. 
The spirit of American liberty here first took assur- 
ance of safety and a permanent existence. But the 
historian who records the various and exalted glories 
of Virginia will find in her loyalty and devotion to 
the Union and the Constitution, as it now is, some- 
thing of more priceless value, a jewel of more radiant 
luster, than any of the historical glories with which 
she is so richly endowed. Whatever hereafter may 
be the policy reluctantly adopted by Yirginia, no one 
can charge her with a ready and willing desertion of 
the established order of things. 



Bonaparte. — E. A. Nisbet. 
From an island of the Middle Sea came the man of 
destiny. No title graced his name; no heraldic in- 
signia emblazoned his shield. Age has scarce marked 
him with the impress of maturity, yet in his heart 
fluttered the high hopes, and around his soul circled 
the daring resolves of unparalleled genius. With his 
mind and his good sword the means, and glory his 



214 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

end, lie headed the soldiery. He bade the boiling 
caldron of popular licentiousness to cease its bubbling, 
and it yielded to his incantations. He seized on power 
as his guerdon, and victory was his familiar spirit. 
The antiquated tactics of the continent dissolved be- 
fore the energy of the conqueror like frost-work be- 
fore the sun of the tropics; nor Alpine heights, nor 
swollen streams, nor veteran host, nor time, nor space 
could limit his career. In his ire he scourged the 
nations, and in his complacency he hushed their 
mournings. Around him he scattered, as if in very 
wantonness, scepters, crowns, and diadems, and king- 
doms were to him but holiday souvenirs. 

Onward was his watch-word, and onward he marched 
over fallen thrones and vanquished realms and pros- 
trate systems. On the field of "Waterloo went down 
the star of the lord paramount of Europe; in gloom, 
'tis true, yet still in glory; and we must yet doubt 
whether it was most conspicuous in the blaze of its 
ascendant or the beauty of its Occident. His name 
attained to an elevation of sublimer attitude than any 
that is known to the registry of fame. For him his- 
tory has no peers and futurity no oblivion. If mind 
and its developments in action is the test of greatness, 
then was Napoleon surpassingly great. He was the 
instrument of good, and Europe may long bless his 
advent; yet Azrael himself is not a more fell destroyer 
than was Bonaparte. He was the minister of misery 
and the great high priest of suffering. 



Bonaparte. — Charles Phillips. (Written after his 
second abdication.) 
The bloody drama of Europe is concluded, and the 
great tragedian who for twenty years had made the 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 215 

earth his theater and set the world in tears has left 
the stage forever. Never was there so ambitious, so 
restless a spirit; never so daring, so fortunate a sol- 
dier. His aim was universal dominion, and he gazed 
at it steadfastly with the eye of an eagle and the ap- 
petite of a vulture. 

He combined within himself all the elements of 
terror, nerve, malice, and intellect; a heart that never 
melted, a hand that never trembled, a mind that never 
wavered. The Almighty seemed to have intrusted 
to him the destinies of the globe, and he used them 
to destroy. He shrouded the sun with the smoke of 
battle and unveiled the night with its fires. 

Amid all the physical, political, and moral changes 
which he produced he was still the same. Always 
ambitious, always inexorable, no conquests satisfied, 
no compassion assuaged, no remorse deterred, no dan- 
gers alarmed him. Like the barbarians, he conquered 
Italy; and rolling back to its source the deluge that 
overwhelmed Eome, he proved himself the Attila of 
the South. He crossed the Alps in triumph; was a 
second Scipio in Africa, and standing on the pyra- 
mids of Egypt he looked down on the fame of Alex- 
der. His name inspired universal terror, and the ob- 
scurity of his designs invested him with mystery and 
awe. He made war before he declared it, and peace 
was with him a signal for hostilities. His friends 
were the first whom he assailed, and his allies his 
chosen objects of plunder. 

There was a singular opposition between his alleged 
motives and his conduct. He would have enslaved 
the land to make the ocean free, and he wanted only 
power to enslave both. If he was arrogant, his un- 
paralleled successes must excuse him. Who could 



216 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

endure the giddiness of such, a mountain elevation? 
"Who that amid the slaughter o£ millions had escaped 
unhurt would not suppose, like Achilles, that a deity 
had lent him armor ? Who that had risen from such 
obscurity, overcome such mighty obstacles, van- 
quished so many monarchs, won such extensive em- 
pires — who, in the fullness of unequaled power, and 
in the pride of exulting ambition, would not believe 
himself the favorite of heaven? 

He received the tribute of love and fear and admi- 
ration. The weight of the chains which he imposed 
on France was forgotten in their splendor. The 
blood-stained soldier adorned his throne with the 
trophies of art, and made Paris the seat of taste as 
of power. There the old and new world met and con- 
versed; there time was robbed of his scythe, linger- 
ing among beauties which he could not destroy; there 
the heroes and sages mingled in splendid alliance and 
joined in the march of fame. These will appeal to 
posterity to mitigate the sentence which humanity 
claims against the tyrant Bonaparte. 

Awful indeed will be that sentence, but when will 
posterity be a disinterested tribunal ? When will the 
time arrive when Europe shall have put off mourning 
for his crimes? In what distant recess of futurity 
will the memory of Moscow sleep? When will Jena, 
Yerona, and Austerlitz; when will Jaffa, Corunna, and 
Waterloo be named without tears of anguish and 
vows of retribution? Earth and man can never for- 
get them. 

His life is a picture of ruin, and the light that dis- 
plays it is the funeral torch of nations. It exhibits 
one mighty sepulcher crowded with the mangled vic- 
tims of murderous ambition. He should carry with 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 217 

him beyond the grave reflections on his enormous 
abuse of power, his violated faith, his shameless dis- 
regard of all law and justice. Let him carry with 
him the recollection of the sins of his political life: 
an example of the catastrophe of wicked grandeur, 
and the vanity of false greatness. Great he unques- 
tionably was; great in the resources of a misguided 
spirit; great in the conception and execution of evil; 
great in mischief, like the pestilence; great in deso- 
lation, like the whirlwind. 



Expunging Eesolutions in the United States Sen- 
ate. — H. Clay. 
But why should I detain the Senate, or needlessly 
waste my breath in fruitless exertions ? The decree 
has gone forth. The deed is to be done — that foul 
deed which, like the blood-stained hands of the guilty 
Macbeth, all ocean's waters will not wash out. Pro- 
ceed, then, with the noble work which lies before you, 
and, like other skillful executioners, do it quickly. 
And when you have perpetrated it, go home to the 
people, and tell them what glorious honors you have 
achieved for our common country. Tell them that 
you have extinguished one of the brightest and pur- 
est lights that ever burned at the altar of civil liberty. 
Tell them that you have silenced one of the noblest 
batteries that ever thundered in defense of the Consti- 
tution, and have bravely spiked the cannon. Tell them 
that henceforward, no matter what daring or outra- 
geous act any President may perform, you have her- 
metically sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell them 
he may fearlessly assume what powers he pleases, 
snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, com- 
mand a military detachment to enter the halls of the 



218 THE PEAEL SPEAKER. 

capitol, overawe Congress, trample down the Consti- 
tution, and raze every bulwark of freedom; but that 
the Senate must stand mute, in silent submission, 
and not dare to raise its opposing voice. That it 
must wait until the House of Representatives, hum- 
ble and subdued like itself, and a majority of it com- 
posed of the partisans of the President, shall prefer 
articles of impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you 
have restored the glorious doctrine of passive obedi- 
ence and non-resistance. And if the people do not 
pour out their indignations and imprecations, I have 
yet to learn the character of American freemen. 



The Union. — Matthew Ranson. 
Now let me ask what it is which gives you and me 
and all of us a patriotic participation in the world- 
wide renown of Prescott, the ever-charming page of 
Irving, the noble story of Bancroft, and the morning 
song of Longfellow? What gives us a share in the 
fame of that philosophy which has tamed the flaming 
minister of the skies and made it the obedient mes- 
senger of human thought? What is it that reflects 
on us the glory of that eloquence whose breath, in- 
spired by philanthropy, fanned the flame of liberty in 
two continents at once, as it was wafted across the 
ocean and echoed from the classic isles of Greece to 
the sunny shores of South America? What is it that 
sheds upon us the splendor of that science which his 
connected the hemispheres by steam, brought the 
whole family of man into one neighborhood, made a 
new chart of the ocean, and with an electric pen re- 
cords the motions of the planets? What is it that 
imparts to us a property in the beauty of that art 
which glows on the canvas of Sully, bodies the maj- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 219 

esty of greatness in the bronze of Mills, and will live 
forever in the breathing marble of Powers? What is 
it but the Union that blends all of these separate 
glories and blessings into one beautiful and consist- 
ent illumination; which spreads out like a canopy 
over the whole American name, and blazes all over 
the earth as brilliant and dazzling as the aurora bore- 
alis, and steady and constant as the Milky Way? 
What is it but the Union which, by the peace and 
prosperity it has secured, has enabled us to build up 
our thousand printing-presses, our myriad schools, 
our countless colleges, and our overflowing libraries? 
What is it but the Union which has secured to the 
people of these States a common inheritance of free- 
dom, a common enjoyment of renown, and a common 
opportunity of intelligence? And as I, as a patriot, 
would not part with my legacy in the fame of Lex- 
ington and Bunker Hill and King's Mountain and 
Mexico at a less price than the precious blood which 
they cost; so, as a scholar, I could not, without tears 
of sorrow and a heart broken with shame, behold the 
day when I could not hold up my head and declare 
all over the world that I was a countryman of Frank- 
lin and Fulton, and breathed the same air of liberty 
with Webster, Calhoun, and Clay. 



Effects of Intemperance. — Henry W. Miller. 

Are you a youth, burning with a high and lauda- 
ble ambition to excel in all the noble pursuits of life, 
and to build up for yourself a lofty and imperishable 
fame? If so, beware, I entreat you, how you touch 
the fatal cup. Are you a patriot? Do you desire to 
see perpetuated those civil and religious institutions 



220 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

which were won by the blood and have been trans- 
mitted to you by the wisdom of your fathers ? Do 
you value, as above all price, that glorious Union 
which has heretofore made us one people — one in in- 
terest, one in hope, one in feeling, one in glory, one 
in destiny ? Do you wish to secure from being broken 
into fragments that sacred urn in which are depos- 
ited the ashes of the illustrious dead of our land and 
around which is clinging the rich remembrance of 
their immortal deeds? If you do, beware how you 
intrust the destinies of the nation to men who, scorn- 
ing the melancholy teachings of experience, and in- 
fusing more of intoxication into the brain than pa- 
triotism into the heart, are fit subjects to become at 
any moment the supple and sycophantic followers or 
the maddened leaders of any fanatical crusade against 
the best and most sacred institutions of the land. Are 
you a Christian? Do you profess to be a follower of 
Him who whilst here upon earth went about doing 
good, and whose whole example was one of benevo- 
lence, charity, and love? If so, how in the name of 
all that is good here and all that is awful in the real- 
ities of the life to come can you stand aloof and gaze 
upon the suffering, the degradation and misery which 
have been produced by intemperance without an effort 
to alleviate its evil or stay its progress ? Can you list- 
en with composure and cold indifference to the appeals 
of wretchedness which come up from thousands and 
tens of thousands of habitations throughout the land? 

And am I asked for evidence of the reality of all this ? 

Go to the miserable hovel, and ask its care-worn ten- 
ant what brought her and her tattered and half-starved 
offspring to such condition. 

Go to your prison-houses, and inquire of the trem- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 221 

bling culprit whence came the tempter who mixed 
such poison in his cup of life. 

Go to your hospitals, where disease and death glare 
their terrific visages, and ask what hand scattered the 
fatal seeds. 

Go to the prostrate and blasted genius, and in- 
quire what demon dipped in venom the arrow which 
brought him down from his lofty eyrie. 

Go to the home of the broken and bleeding heart, 
and ask whence came the serpent that turned its par- 
adise into a hell. 

Go to the wretched maniac, and seek to know what 
ruthless hand erased from his once erect and well- 
poised mind the image of its Deity. 

Go to the whitened head of age, and ask what pal- 
sied touch shattered his trembling limbs and bent down 
his once noble frame prematurely to its mother earth. 

Go to the bedside of one who writhes under the 
burning grasp of delirium, and catch if you can a 
glimpse of the hideous forms and terrific visions which 
flit in quick succession across his distempered imagi- 
nation. Ash him what has shut out from his view all 
of peace and hope and fixed upon his soul the horrors 
of the damned? 

Get a response from all such, and then, if you re- 
main longer silent and careless spectators of the great 
work of kindness, charity, and temperance which is 
going on around you, heavy, awful indeed, will be the 
accountability which is in store for you, if there be 
truth, as there assuredly is, in the word of God, and 
justice at his judgment-seat! 



Ignorance in Our Country a Crime.— H. Mann. 
In all the dungeons of the old world, where the 



222 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

strong champions of freedom are now pining in cap- 
tivity beneath the remorseless power of the tyrant, 
the morning sun does not send a glimmering ray into 
their cells, nor does night draw a thicker veil of dark- 
ness between them and the world, but the lone pris- 
oner lifts his iron-laden arms to heaven in prayer 
that we, the depositaries of freedom and of human 
hopes, may be faithful to our sacred trust; while, on 
the other hand, the pensioned advocates of despotism 
stand with listening ear to catch the first sound of 
lawless violence that is wafted from our shores, to 
note the first breach of faith or act of perfidy among 
us, and to convert them into arguments against liberty 
and the rights of man. 

There is not a shout sent up by an insane mob on 
this side of the Atlantic but it is echoed by a thou- 
sand presses and by ten thousand tongues along every 
mountain and valley on the other. There is not a 
conflagration kindled by the ruthless hand of vio- 
lence but its flame glares over all Europe from hori- 
zon to zenith. On each occurrence of a flagitious 
scene, whether it be an act of turbulence or devasta- 
tion, or a deed of perfidy or breach of faith, monarchs 
point them out as fruits of the growth and omens of 
the fate of republics, and claim for themselves and 
their heirs a further extension of the lease of des- 
potism. 

The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes 
of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in 
an appeal to us; they implore us to think more of the 
character of our people than of their numbers ; to look 
upon our vast natural resources not as tempters to 
ostentation and pride but as a means to be converted, 
by the refining alchemy of education into mental and 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 223 

spiritual treasures. They supplicate as to seek for 
whatever complacency we are disposed to indulge, not 
in the extent of our territory, or in the products of 
our soil, but in the expansion and perpetuation of the 
means of human happiness. They beseech us to ex- 
change the luxuries of sense for the joys of charity, 
and thus give to the world the example of a nation 
whose wisdom increases with its prosperity and whose 
virtues are equal to its power. For these ends they 
enjoin upon us a more earnest, a more universal, a more 
religious devotion to our exertions and resources, to 
the culture of the youthful mind and heart of the na- 
tion. Their gathered voices assert the eternal truth 
that in a republic ignorance is a crime; and that private 
immorality is not less an opprobrium to the state 
than it is guilt in the perpetration. 

The South. — Henry W. Geady at Boston. 

Far to the South, Mr. President, separated from 
this section by a line, once denned in irrepressible 
difference, once traced in fratricidal blood, and now, 
thank God, but a vanishing shadow, lies the fairest 
and richest domain of this earth. It is the home of 
a brave and hospitable people. There are centered all 
that can please or prosper human kind. A perfect 
climate, above a fertile soil, invites the stranger. 

Beautiful as is this land, why are there fewer North- 
ern-born people in the South in 1880 than in 1870, 
fewer in 1870 than in 1860? Why is it, sir, though 
the sectional line be now but a mist that the breath 
may dispel, fewer men of the North have crossed it 
over to the South than when it was crimson with the 
best blood of the republic, or even when the slave- 
holder stood guard every inch of its way? 



224 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

There can be but one answer. It is the very prob- 
lem we are now to consider. The key that opens that 
problem will unlock to the world the fairest half of 
this republic, and free the halted feet of thousands 
whose eyes are already kindling with its beauty. Bet- 
ter than this, it will open the hearts of brothers for 
thirty years estranged, and clasp in lasting comrade- 
ship a million hands now withheld in doubt. 

Nothing, sir, but this problem, and the suspicions 
it breeds, hinders a clear understanding and a perfect 
union. Nothing else stands between us and such love 
as bound Georgia and Massachusetts at Yalley Forge 
and Yorktown, chastened by the sacrifices at Manas- 
sas and Gettysburg, and illumined with the coming 
of better work and a nobler destiny than was ever 
wrought with the sword or sought at the cannon's 
mouth. 

I thank God as heartily as you do that human slav- 
ery is gone forever from the American soil. But the 
freedman remains, and with him a problem without 
precedent or parallel. This, sir, imposes a mighty 
duty, and a mighty inspiration impels every one of us 
to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever 
estranges, whatever divides. 

We, sir, are Americans, and we fight for human 
liberty. The uplifting force of the American idea is 
under every throne on earth. France, Brazil — these 
are our victories. To redeem the earth from king- 
craft and oppression — this is our mission. And we 
shall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of his 
millennial harvest, and he will not lay the sickle to 
the ripening crop until his full and perfect day has 
come. 

Oar history, sir, has been a constant and expand- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 225 

ing miracle from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all 
the way — ay, even from the hour when from the 
voiceless and trackless ocean a new world rose to the 
sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the 
fourth centennial of that stupendous day — when the 
old world will come to marvel and to learn amid our 
gathered treasures, let us resolve to crown the mir- 
acles of our past with the spectacle of a republic com- 
pact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love 1 — lov- 
ing from the Lakes to the Gulf — the wounds of war 
healed in every heart and on every hill — serene and 
resplendent at the summit of human achievement and 
earthly glory — blazing out the path, and making clear 
the way up which all the nations of the earth must 
come in God's appointed time. 



James Otis in 1765. — Lydia Maria Child. 

England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile 
with bulrushes as to fetter the steps of freedom, more 
proud and firm in this youthful land than where she 
treads the sequestered glens of Scotland or couches 
herself among the magnificent mountains of Switz- 
erland. Arbitrary principles, like those against which 
we now contend, have cost one king of England his 
life, another his crown, and they may yet cost a third 
his most flourishing colonies. We are two millions, 
one-fifth fighting men. We are bold and vigorous, 
and call no man master. To the nation from whom 
we are proud to derive our origin we ever were and 
ever will be ready to yield unforced assistance ; but it 
must not, and never can be extorted. 

Some have sneeringly asked: "Are the Americans 
too poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper?" 
No! America, thanks to God and herself, is rich. 
15 



226 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

But the right to take ten pounds implies the right to 
take a thousand; and what must be the wealth that 
avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust? True, the 
specter is now small, but the shadow he casts before 
him is huge enough to darken all this fair land. 

Others, in sentimental style, talk of the immense 
debt of gratitude which we owe to England. And 
what is the amount of that debt? Why, truly, it is the 
same that the young lion owes to the dam which has 
brought it forth on the solitude of the mountain, or 
left it to perish amid the winds and storms of the 
desert. 

We plunged into the wave with the great charter 
of freedom in our teeth, because the fagot and torch 
were behind us. We have waked this new world from 
its savage lethargy; forests have been prostrated in 
our path; towns and cities have grown up suddenly 
as the flowers of the tropics, and the fires in our au- 
tumnal woods are scarcely more rapid than the in- 
crease of our wealth and population. And do we owe 
all this to the kind succor of the mother country? 
No! we owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her; 
to the pelting storms that invigorated our helpless 
infancy. 

But others will say: "We ask do money from your 
gratitude; we only ask that you should pay your ex- 
penses." And who, I pray, is to judge of their neces- 
sity? Why, the king! Who is to judge concerning 
the frequency of these demands? The ministry. 

In every instance those who take are to judge for 
those who pay. But, thanks to God, there is freedom 
enough left upon earth to resist such monstrous in- 
justice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece 
and Kome, but the light of its glowing embers is still 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 227 

bright and strong on the shores of America. Actu- 
ated by its sacred influence, we will resist until death. 
But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. 
The wrongs that a desperate community have heaped 
upon their enemies shall be amply and speedily re- 
paired. Still, it may be well for some proud men to 
remember that a fire is lighted in these colonies which 
one breath of their king may kindle into such fury 
that the blood of all England cannot extinguish it. 



The Natural and Moral Worlds. — Grimke. 

Man, the noblest work of God in this lower world, 
walks abroad through its labyrinths of grandeur and 
beauty, amid countless manifestations of creative pow- 
er and providential wisdom. He acknowledges in all 
that he beholds the might that called them into be- 
ing, the skill which perfected the harmony of the 
parts, and the benevolence which consecrated all to 
the glory of God and the welfare of his fellow-creat- 
ures. He stands entranced on the peak of iEtna, on 
Teneriffe, and looks down upon the far-distant ocean, 
silent to his ear and tranquil to his eye, amid the 
rushing of tempestuous winds and the fierce conflict 
of stormy billows. He sits enraptured upon the 
mountain summit, and beholds, as far as the eye can 
reach, a forest robe flowing in all the varieties of grace- 
ful undulation over declivity after declivity, as though 
the fabulous river of the skies were pouring its azure 
waves over all the landscape. 

He hangs over the precipice, and gazes with awful 
delight on the savage glen, rent open as it were by 
the earthquake, and black with lightning - shattered 
rocks ; its only music the echoing thunder, the scream 
of the lonely eagle, and the tumultuous waters of the 



228 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

mountain torrent. He reclines in pensive mood on 
the hill-top, and sees around him and beneath him 
all the luxuriant beauties of field and meadow, of 
olive-yard and vineyard, of wandering stream and 
grove-encircled lake. 

He descends to the plain, and amid waving har- 
vests, verdant avenues, and luxuriant orchards sees 
between garden and grass plot the farm-house, em- 
bosomed in copse -wood, or "tall ancestral trees." 
He walks through the valley fenced in by barrier 
cliffs, to contemplate with mild enthusiasm its scenes 
of pastoral beauty; the cottage and its blossomed ar- 
bor, the shepherd and his flock, the clumps of oaks, 
or the solitary willow. He enters the caverns buried 
far beneath the surface, and is struck with amaze- 
ment at the grandeur and magnificence of a subter- 
ranean palace hewn out as it were by the power of 
the genii, and decorated by the taste of Armida, or of 
the queen of the fairies. 

Such is the natural world; and such, for the most 
part, has it ever been since men began to subdue the 
wilderness, to scatter the ornaments of civilization 
amid the rural scenery of nature, and to plant the 
lily on the margin of the deep, the village on the hill- 
side, and martial battlements in the defiles of the 
mountains. Such has been the natural world, wheth- 
er beheld by the eye of savage and barbarian, of civ- 
ilized and refined. Such has it been, for the most 
part, whether contemplated by the harpers of Greece, 
the bards of Northern Europe, or the voluptuous min- 
strels of a Troubadour age. Such it was when its 
beauties, like scattered stars, beamed on the page of 
classic lore; and such when its "sunshine of picture" 
poured a flood of meridian splendor on modern liter- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 229 

ature. Such is the natural world to the ancient and 
modern, the pagan and the Christian. 

Admirable as the natural world is for its sublimity 
and beauty, who would compare it even for an in- 
stant with the sublimity and beauty of the moral 
world. Is not the soul, with its glorious destiny and 
its capacities for eternal happiness, more awful and 
majestic than the boundless Pacific or the intermina- 
ble Andes? Is not the mind, with its thoughts that 
wander through eternity and its wealth of intellectual 
power, an object of more intense interest than forest 
or cataract or precipice? And the heart so eloquent 
in the depth, purity, and pathos of its affections; 
can the richest scenery of hill and dale, can the mel- 
ody of breeze and brook and bird rival it in loveli- 
ness? 

The same God is the author of the visible and in- 
visible world. The moral beauty and grandeur of 
the world of man are equally the production of 
his wisdom and goodness with the fair, the sub- 
lime, the wonderful in the physical creation. What, 
indeed, are these but the outward manifestations 
of his might, skill, and benevolence? What are 
they but a glorious volume, forever speaking to the 
eye and ear of man, in the language of sight and 
sound, the praises of its Author? And what are 
those but images, faint and imperfect as they are, of his 
own incomprehensible attributes? What are they — 
the soul, the mind, the heart of an immortal being — 
but the temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling-place 
of him whom the heaven of heavens cannot con- 
tain, who inhabiteth eternity? How, then, can we 
compare, even for a moment, the world of nature 
with the world of man? 



230 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

The Futuke of the South. — W. P. C. Bkecken- 

EIDGE AT HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. 

It is, indeed, a surpassing future which tempts us 
to noble duties. No people were ever given such a 
theater upon which to perform their part. A mag- 
nificent continent to be peopled, and that with a race 
of enlightened Christian freemen, whose destiny it is 
to give constitutional liberty to the world, and whose 
duty it is to be fit for such high destiny. 

"Give constitutional liberty to the world." How 
vast and far-reaching is the import included in those 
simple words! " Midway between Europe and the 
continents, where the colored races have had the cent- 
uries for their development; with a language that is 
fit vehicle for immortal aspirations and eternal hopes, 
with the pervasive spirit of eternal liberty, with the 
irresistible power of a divine religion, our mission is 
full of ineffable glory." 

There will be no other limit to our growth than 
that set by justice to our neighbor and our duties to 
humanity. Every field of greatness opens before us, 
and glorious enterprises beckon us to intenser labors. 
Sorrows and sacrifices, errors and follies, the brutal- 
ities and ferocities of progress may be our part of 
the future; this has always been— this is the lot of 
mankind. But in spite of these the advancing day 
grows brighter, the climbing sun shines more radi- 
antly, the horizon widens before our entranced vision 
and we press on with unfaltering heart into that 
future that lies before us. 

At the foot of this stately monument of granite, 
this stone hewn from the mountains of Maine, planted 
now in the heart of Kentucky in the honor of soldiers 
from far off Texas, we invoke the Almighty to grant 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 231 

that in the ceaseless contest our children may be as 
heroic and enduring as these unknown dead; ready to 
live for the right, and ready, if need be, to die for the 
right. 

On this monument these heroes are called "un- 
known," but on the muster-rolls of their commands 
their names remain; on the hearts of those who loved 
them and mourned for them their names are en- 
graven; and on God's roll on high their immortal 
names are radiant. 

We cannot repeat their names; we can honor their 
memories; we can reverence their deeds; we can emu- 
late their virtues; we can commemorate their deaths. 

On this gentle ascent stand, thou silent witness, 
and testify to all who come to this sacred place — 
here in the awful presence of the buried dead, in the 
tearful sight of the recurring visitations on the sad 
errands of burial, in the august presence of an ever- 
living God — that to lofty virtues sanctified by death, 
and noble hopes purified by sorrows and sacrifice, 
there is an immortality of bliss. 



Speech of Walpole in .Reproof of Mr. Pitt. 

I was unwilling to interrupt the course of this de- 
bate, while it was carried on with decency and calm- 
ness, by men who do not suffer the ardor of opposition 
to cloud their reason, or transport them to such ex- 
pressions as the dignity of this assembly does not 
admit. 

I have hitherto deferred answering the gentleman, 
who declaimed against the bill with such fluency and 
rhetoric and such vehemence of gesture, who charged 
the advocates for the expedients now proposed with 



232 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

having no regard to any interest but their own, and 
with making laws only to consume paper, and threat- 
ened them with the defection of their adherents and 
the loss of their influence upon this new discovery 
of their folly and ignorance. Nor do I now answer 
him for any other purpose than to remind him how 
little the clamor of rage and petulancy of invective 
contribute to the end for which this assembly is 
called together; how little the discovery of truth is 
promoted and the security of the nation established 
by pompous diction and theatrical emotion. 

Formidable sounds and furious declamation, con- 
fident assertions and lofty periods may affect the 
young and inexperienced; and perhaps the gentleman 
may have contracted his habits of oratory by con- 
versing more with those of his own age than with 
sach as have more opportunities of acquiring knowl- 
edge, and more successful methods of communicating 
their sentiments. If the heat of temper would per- 
mit him to attend to those whose age and long ac- 
quaintance with business give them an indisputable 
right to deference and superiority, he would learn in 
time to reason rather than declaim, and to prefer 
justness of argument and accurate knowledge of facts 
to sounding epithets and splendid superlatives, which 
may disturb the imagination for a moment, but leave 
no lasting impression on the mind. He would learn 
that to accuse and prove are very different, and that 
reproaches unsupported by evidence affect only the 
character of him who utters them. 

Excursions of fancy and flights of oratory are in- 
deed pardonable in young men, but in no other; and 
it would surely contribute more, even to the purpose 
for which some gentlemen appear to speak, to prove 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 233 

the inconveniences and injustice of this bill than 
barely to assert them with whatever magnificence of 
language or appearance of zeal, honesty, or compas- 
sion. 

Pitt's Keply to Kobert Walpole. 

The atrocious crime of being a young man, which 
the honorable gentleman has with such spirit and 
decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to 
palliate nor deny; but content myself with hoping 
that I may be one of those whose follies cease with 
their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant 
in spite of experience. Whether youth can be im- 
puted to a man as a reproach i will not assume the 
province of determining; but surely age may become 
justly contemptible if the opportunities which it 
brings have passed away without improvement, and 
vice appears to prevail when the passions have sub- 
sided. The wretch who, after seeing the consequences 
of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and 
whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity is 
surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, 
and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure 
him from insult. Much more is he to be abhorred 
who as he has advanced in age has receded from 
virtue, and become more wicked with less tempta- 
tion; who prostitutes himself for money which he 
cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in 
the ruin of his country. 

But youth is not my only crime: I am accused of 
acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either 
imply some peculiarity of gesture or a dissimulation 
of my real sentiments, and the adoption of the opin- 
ions and language of another man. In the first sense, 



234 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves 
only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am 
at liberty, like every other man, to nse my own lan- 
guage; and though perhaps I may have some ambi- 
tion to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself 
under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his 
diction or his mien, however matured by age or mod- 
eled by experience. 

But if any man shall, by charging me with the- 
atrical behavior, imply that I utter any sentiments 
but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator 
and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him 
from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an 
occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those 
forms with which wealth and dignity intrench them- 
selves, nor shall any thing but age restrain my resent- 
ment; age, which always brings one privilege — that of 
being insolent and supercilious without punishment. 

But, with regard to those whom I have offended, 
I am of opinion that if I had acted a borrowed 
part I should have avoided their censure; the heat 
that offended them was the ardor of conviction and 
that zeal for the service of my country which neither 
hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will 
not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor 
look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my 
endeavors, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor 
and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect 
him in his villainies and whoever may partake of 
his plunder. 

Eulogy on Lafayette. — Charles Sprague. 
While we bring our offerings for the mighty of our 
own land, shall we not remember the chivalrous spirits 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 235 

of other shores who shared with them the hour of 
weakness and woe? Pile to the clouds the majestic 
column of glory; let the lips of those who can speak 
well hallow each spot where the bones of your bold 
repose; but forget not those who with your bold went 
out to battle. 

Among these men of noble daring there was one, 
a young and gallant stranger who left the blushing, 
vine-clad hills of his ' delightful France. The people 
whom he came to srtecor were not his people; he knew 
them only in the melancholy story of their wrongs. 

He was no mercenary wretch striving for the spoil 
of the vanquished; the palace acknowledged him for 
its lord, and the valleys yielded him their increase. 
He was no nameless man staking life for reputation ; 
he ranked among nobles, and looked unawed upon 
kings. He was no friendless outcast seeking for a 
grave to hide his cold heart; he was girdled by the 
companions of his childhood; his kinsmen were about 
him; his wife was before him. 

Yet from all those he turned away and came; like 
a lofty tree that shakes down its green glories to bat- 
tle with the winter's storm, he flung aside the trap- 
pings of place and pride to crusade for freedom in free- 
dom's holy land. He came; but not in the day of 
successful rebellion; not when the new-risen sun of 
independence had burst the cloud of time, and ca- 
reered to its place in the heavens. He came when 
.darkness curtained the hills, and the tempest was 
abroad in its anger; when the plow stood still in the 
field of promise, and briers cumbered the garden of 
beauty; when fathers were dying, and mothers were 
weeping over them; when the wife was binding up 
the gashed bosom of her husband, and the maiden 



236 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

was wiping the death-damp from the brow of her 
lover. He came when the brave began to fear the 
power of man, and the pious to donbt the favor of 
God. 

It was then that this one joined the ranks of a re- 
volted people. Freedom's little phalanx bid him a 
grateful welcome. With them he courted the battle's 
rage; with theirs his arm was lifted; with theirs his 
blood was shed. Long and doubtful was the conflict. 

At length kind Heaven smiled on the good cause, 
and the beaten invaders fled. The profane was driv- 
en from the temple of liberty, and at her pure shrine 
the pilgrim warrior with his adored commander knelt 
and worshiped. Leaving there his offering, the in- 
cense of an uncorrupted spirit, he at length rose and, 
crowned with benedictions, turned his happy feet to- 
ward his long-deserted home. 

A After nearly fifty years that one has come again. 
Can mortal tongue tell, can mortal heart feel the sub- 
limity of that coming? Exulting millions rejoice in 
it; and the loud, long, transporting shout like the 
mingling of many winds rolls on undying to free- 
dom's farthest mountain. A congregated nation comes 
around him. Old men bless him, and children rever- 
ence him. The lovely come out to look upon him; 
the learned deck their halls to greet him; the rulers 
of the land rise up to do him homage. How his full 
heart labors? He views the rusting trophies of de- 
parted days; he treads upon the high places where 
his brethren molder; he bends before the tomb of 
his father; his words are tears — the speech of sad re- 
membrance. But he looks around upon a ransomed 
land and a joyous race; he beholds the blessings 
those trophies secured, for which those brethren died, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 237 

for which that father lived; and again his words are 
tears — the eloquence of gratitude and joy. 

Spread forth creation like a map; bid earth's dead 
multitude revive; and of all the pageants that ever 
glittered to the sun, when looked his burning eye on 
a sight like this ? Of all the myriads that have come 
and gone, what cherished minion ever ruled an hour 
like this r Many have struck the redeeming blow for 
their own freedom, but who, like this man, has bared 
his bosom in the cause of strangers? Others have 
lived in the love of their own people, but who, like 
this man, has drunk his sweetest out of welcome with 
another ?v Matchless chief! of glory's immortal tab- 
lets there is one for him, for him alone! Oblivion 
shall never shroud its splendor! The everlasting 
flame of liberty shall guard it, that the generations of 
men may repeat the name recorded there, the beloved 
name of Lafayette. 

Napoleon and His Acquisitions. — Thomas Cor win. 

Mr. President, a mind more prone to look for the 
judgments of heaven in the doings of men than mine 
cannot fail, in all unjust acquisitions of territory, to 
see the providence of God. When Moscow burned 
it seemed as if the earth was lighted up that the na- 
tions might behold the scene. As that mighty sea of 
fire gathered and heaved and rolled upward and yet 
higher, it did seem as though the God of the nations 
was writing in characters of flame on the front of his 
throne that doom which shall fall upon the strong 
nation that tramples upon the weak. 

And what fortune awaits him, the appointed execu- 
tor of this work, when it was all done? He too con- 
ceived the notion that his destiny pointed to univer- 



238 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

sal domain. France was too small. Europe, lie 
thought, should bow down before him. But as soon 
as this idea takes possession of his soul he too be- 
comes powerless. His Terminus must recede too. 
Right there, while he witnessed the humiliation and 
doubtless meditated the subjugation of Eussia, he 
who holds the winds in his fist gathered the snows of 
the north and blew them upon his six hundred thou- 
sand men. They fled, they froze, they perished. 

And now the mighty Napoleon, who had resolved 
on universal dominion, he too is summoned to an- 
swer for the violation of that ancient law: "Thou 
shalt not covet any thing which is thy neighbor's." 
How is the mighty fallen! He beneath whose proud 
footstep Europe trembled is now an exile at Elba, 
and now finally a prisoner on the rock of St. Helena; 
and there on a barren island, in an unfrequented sea, 
in the crater of an extinct volcano, there is the death- 
bed of the mighty conqueror. All his annexations 
have come to that! His last hour is now at hand, and 
he, the man of destiny, he who had rocked the world 
as with the throes of an earthquake, is now powerless, 
still, even as the beggar so he died. 

On the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted 
fury to the throne of the only power that controlled 
him while he lived, went the fiery soul of that won- 
derful warrior, another witness to the existence of 
that eternal decree that they who do not rule in 
righteousness shall perish from the earth. He has 
found " room " at last. And France, she too has found 
"room." Her "eagles" now no longer scream along 
the banks of the Danube and the Po. They have re- 
turned home to their old aerie between the Alps, the 
Pyrenees, and the Rhine. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 239 

So shall it be with your eagles. You may carry 
them to the loftiest peak of the Cordilleras; they may 
wave with insolent triumph in the halls of the Mon- 
tezumas; the armed men of Mexcio may quail before 
them; but the weakest hand in Mexico, uplifted in 
prayer to the God of justice, may call down on you a 
power in the presence of which the iron hearts of 
your warriors shall be turned into ashes. 



The Resurrection in Italy. — Thomas Francis 
Meagher. 

Sir, is there nothing in the events now transpiring 
around us to rouse Ireland from her sleep? is there 
nothing to stir the blood of her sons ? Beyond the 
Alps a trumpet calls the dead nations of Europe from 
their shrouds. Do you not hear it ? Does it not ring 
through the soul and quiver through the brain ? Italy, 
at whose tomb the poets of the Christian world have 
knelt and received their inspiration; Italy, amid the 
ruins of whose forum the orators of the world have 
learned to sway the souls of men; Italy, from whose 
radiant skies the sculptor draws down the fire that 
quickens the marble into life; Italy, the brave, the 
beautiful, and the gifted Italy, is in arms. 

Prostrate for centuries amid the dust of heroes, 
wasting silently away, she has started from her swoon, 
for the vestal flame could not be extinguished. Aus- 
tria, old, decrepit, haggard thief, clotted with the cost- 
ly blood of Poland, trembles as she sheathes her sword 
and plays the penitent within the walls of Ferrara. 

Glory to the citizens of Eome who have sworn that 
they prize liberty as a treasure to be battled for with 
their lives! And glory to the maids and matrons of 



240 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Eome who bid the chivalry of their homes to go forth 
in the righteous cause! 

And what can Ireland do to aid this brilliant nation 
in her struggle? In rags, in hunger, and in sickness 
— sitting like a widowed queen amid the shadows of 
her pillared towers and the gray altars of a forgotten 
creed — with two millions of her sons and daughters 
lying slain and shroudless at her feet— what can this 
poor island do? Weak, sorrowful, and treasureless 
as she is, I believe there are a few rich drops within 
her heart that she can spare. 

Perish the law that forbids her to give more ! Per- 
ish the law that, having drained her of her wealth, 
forbids her to be the boldest spirit in the fight! 
Perish the law which, in the language of one whose 
genius I admire, but whose apostasy I shall never 
imitate, converts the island which ought to be the 
most fortunate in the world into a receptacle of suf- 
fering and degradation, counteracting the magnificent 
arrangement of Providence, frustrating the benefi- 
cent designs of God. 

Thebe Are No Dead. — Bulwee. 
There is no death! The stars go down 

To rise upon some fairer shore; 
And bright in Heaven's jeweled crown 

They shine forevermore. 

There is no death! The dust we tread 

Shall change beneath the summer showers 

To golden grain or mellow fruit, 
Or rainbow-tinted flowers. 

There is no death! An angel form 
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread; 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 241 

He bears our best loved tilings away, 
And then we call them "dead." 

Born into that undying life, 

They leave us but to come again; 
With joy we welcome them — the same, 

Except in sin and pain. 

And ever near us, though unseen, 

The dear immortal spirits tread; 
For all the boundless universe 

Is life. There are no dead. 



Teaces of the Ocean. — Hugh Miller. 
Was it the sound of the distant surf that was in my 
ears, or the low moan of the breeze as it crept through 
the neighboring woods? O that hoarse voice of 
the ocean, not silent since time first began! Where 
has it not been uttered? There is stillness amid 
the calm of the arid and rainless desert, where no 
spring rises and no streamlet flows, and the long 
caravan plies its weary march amid the blinding 
glare of the sand and the red, unshaded rays of the 
fierce sun. But once again, and yet again, has the 
roar of ocean been there. It is his sands that 
the winds heap up; and it is the skeleton remains of 
his vassals — shells and fish, and the strong coral — that 
the rocks underneath inclose. There is silence on 
the mountain-peak, with its glittering mantle of 
snow, where the panting lungs labor to inhale the 
thin, bleak air, where no insect murmurs and no bird 
flies, and where the eye wanders over multitudinous 
hill-tops that lie far beneath, and vast dark forests 
that sweep on to the distant horizon, and down long, 
16 



242 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

hollow valleys, where the great rivers begin. And 
yet once and again, and yet again, has the roar of 
ocean been there. The elegies of his more ancient 
denizens we find sculptured on the crags, where they 
jut from beneath the ice into the mist wreath; and 
his later beaches, stage beyond stage, terrace the de- 
scending slopes. Where has the great destroyer not 
been — the devourer of continents, the blue foaming 
dragon, whose vocation it is to eat up the land ? His 
ice floes have alike furrowed the flat steppes of 
Siberia and the rocky flanks of Schehallion; and his 
fish lie embedded in the great stones of the Pyr- 
amids hewn in the times of the old Pharaohs, and 
in rocky folds of Lebanon still untouched by the tool. 
So long as Ocean exists there must be disintegration, 
dilapidation, change ; and should the time ever arrive 
when the elevatory agencies, motionless and chill, 
shall sleep within their profound depths to awaken 
no more, and should the seas till continue to impel 
its currents and to roll its waves, every continent and 
island would at length disappear, and again, as of 
old, "when the fountains of the great deeps were 
broken up," 

A shoreless ocean tumble round the globe. 



The Last Man. — Campbell. 

All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, 

The sun himself must die, 
Before this mortal shall assume ~- 

Its immortality! 
I saw a vision in my sleep 
That gave my spirit strength to sweep 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 243 

Adown the gulf of time! 
I saw the last of human mold 
That shall creation's death behold, 

As Adam saw her prime. 

The sun's eye had a sickly glare, 

The earth with age was wan, 
The skeletons of nations were 

Around that lonely man! 
Some had expired in fight — the brands 
Still rusted in their bony hands ; 

In plague and famine some! 
Earth's cities had no sound nor tread; 
And ships were drifting with the dead 

To shores where all was dumb! 

Yet prophet-like that lone one stood, 

With dauntless words and high, 
That shook the sere leaves from the wood 

As if a storm passed by — 
Saying, " We are twins in death, proud sun, 
Thy face is cold, thy race is run, 

'Tis mercy bids thee go; 
For thou ten thousand thousand years 
Hast seen the tide of human tears, 

That shall no longer flow. 

" What though beneath thee man put forth 

His pomp, his pride, his skill, 
And arts that made fire, flood, and earth, 

The vassals of his will? 
Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, 
Thou dim, discrowned king of day: 

For all those trophied arts 
And triumphs that beneath thee sprang, 



244 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Healed not a passion or a pang 
Entailed on human hearts. 

" Go, let oblivion's curtain fall 

Upon the stage of men, 
Nor with thy rising beams recall 

Life's tragedy again. 
Its piteous pageants bring not back, 
Nor waken flesh upon the rack 

Of pain anew to writhe; 
Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred 
Or mown in battle by the sword, 

Like grass beneath the scythe. 

" Even I am weary in yon skies 

To watch thy fading fires; 
Lest of all sumless agonies, 

Behold not me expire. 
My lips that speak thy dirge of death — 
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath 

To see thou shalt not boast; 
The eclipse of nature spreads my pall, 
The majesty of darkness shall 

Receive my parting ghost! 

" This spirit shall return to Him 

Who gave its heavenly spark; 
Yet think not, sun, it shall be dim, 

When thou thyself art dark! 
No! it shall live again and shine 
In bliss unknown to beams of thine, 

By Him recalled to breath 
Who captive led captivity, 
Who robbed the grave of victory, 

And took the sting from death! 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 245 

" Go, sun, whilst mercy holds me up 

On nature's awful waste, 
To drink this last and bitter cup 

Of grief that man shall taste; 
Go, tell the night that hides thy face, 
Thow saw'st the last of Adam's race 

On earth's sepulchral clod 
The darkening universe defy 
To quench his immortality 

Or shake his trust in God! " 



HOHENLINDEN* — CAMPBELL. 

On Linden, when the sun was low, 
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow; 
And dark as winter was the flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 

But Linden saw another sight 
When the drum beat at dead of night, 
Commanding fires of death to light 
The darkness of her scenery. 

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, 
Each horseman drew his battle blade, 
And furious every charger neighed, 
To join the dreadful revelry. 

Then shook the hills with thunder riven, 
Then rushed the steed to battle driven, 
And louder than the bolts of heaven 
Far flashed the red artillery. 

But redder yet that light shall glow 
On Linden's hills of stained snow; 
And bloodier yet the torrent flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 



246 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun, 
Can pierce the war-clouds rolling dun, 
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun 
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy. 

The combat deepens. On, ye brave, 
Who rush to glory or the grave! 
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, 
And charge with all thy chivalry. 

Few, few shall part where many meet! 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 
And every turf beneath their feet 
Shall be a soldier's sepulcher. 



The Paupek's Dbive. — Thomas Noel. 
There's a grim, one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot, 
To the church-yard a pauper is going, I wot; 
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs; 
And hark to the dirge which the sad driver sings: 

"Rattle his bones over the stones! 

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!" 

O where are the mourners? Alas! there are none; 
He's left not a gap in the world, now he's gone — 
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man; 
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can: 

Rattle his bones over the stones! 

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! 

What a jolting, and creaking, and plashing, and din! 
The whip how it cracks ! and the wheels how they spin! 
How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled! 
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world. 

Rattle his bones over the stones! 

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 247 

Poor pauper defunct, he has made some approach 
To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach! 
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last; 
But it will not be long if he goes on so fast. 

Rattle his bones over the stones! 

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! 

You bumpkins ! who stare at your brother conveyed, 
Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid! 
And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low, 
You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go. 

Battle his bones over the stones! 

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! 

But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad, 
To think that a heart in humanity clad 
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end, 
And depart from the light without leaving a friend. 

Battle his bones over the stones! 

He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns! 



The Ocean. — Byron. 
Boll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! 

Ten thousand fleets sweep o'er thee in vain: 
Man marks the earth with ruin; his control 

Stops with the shore, Upon the watery plain 

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 

When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 

The armaments which thunder-strike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 



248 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; 

These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake, 

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 

Alike the Armada's pride, and spoils of Trafalgar. 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Borne, Carthage, where are they? 

Thy waters washed them power when they were free, 
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay 

Has dried up realms to deserts. Not so thou: 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, 

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow; 

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, 

Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime; 

The image of eternity, the throne 

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime 

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone 

Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 



Erin. — Thomas N. Burke. 
One of the strongest passions and one of the no- 
blest that God has implanted in the heart of man is 
the love of the land that bore him. 

Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
"Who never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 249 

The pleasure of standing upon the soil of our 
birth; the pleasure of preserving the associations 
that surrounded our boyhood and our youth; the 
pleasure — sad and melancholy though it be — of 
watching every gray hair and every wrinkle which 
time sends ever to those whom we love — these are 
among the keenest and best pleasures of which the 
heart of man is capable. Exile from native land has 
been looked upon by men as a penalty and a griev- 
ance. This is true even of those whom nature has 
placed upon the most barren and rugged soil. The 
Swiss peasant, who lives amidst the everlasting snows 
of the Upper Alps, who sees no form of beauty in 
nature except her grandest and most austere propor- 
tions, so dearly loves his arid mountain home that 
it is heart-breaking to him to be banished from it, 
even though he were placed to spend his exile in the 
most delicious quarter of the globe. Much more 
does the pain of exile rest upon the children of a 
race at once the most generous, the most kind- 
hearted, and the most loving of any on earth. Much 
more sadly does it rest upon the children of a race 
who look back to their mother-land as to a fair and 
beautiful land; a climate temperate and delicious; a 
soil fruitful and abundant; scenery now rising into 
the glory of magnificence, now sinking into the ten- 
derest pastoral beauty ; . a history the grandest of all 
the nations of earth; associations so tender and pure 
that they aggravate the misery and enhance the pain 
which the Irishman, of all other men,, feels when he 
is exiled from his native land. 

But there is a future for these exiles, for our beau- 
tiful Emerald Isle. And what is the future that is yet 
to dawn on this dearly loved land of ours? O how 



250 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

glorious will it be when all Irishmen are united in 
one common faith and one common love! O how fair 
will our beloved Erin be when, clothed in unity, equal- 
ity, and freedom, she shall rise out of the ocean 
wave as fair, as lovely in the end of time as she was 
in the glorious days when the world, entranced by her 
beauty, proclaimed her the mother of saints and 
sages. 

Yes, I see her rising emancipated: no trace of blood 
or persecution on her virgin face; the crown so long 
lost to her resting on her fair brow! I see her in 
peace and concord with ail the nations around her, 
and with her own children inclosed within her warm 
embrace. I see her venerated by the nations afar off 
and most of all by the mighty nation which in that 
day, in its strength, and in its youth, and in its vigor 
shall sway the destinies of the world. I see her as 
Columbia salutes her across the ocean waves. But 
the light of freedom coming from around my mother's 
face will reflect the light of freedom coming from the 
face of that nation which has been nursed in freedom, 
cradled in freedom, and which has never violated the 
principles of freedom and equality. I see her with 
the light of faith shining on her face; I see her be- 
loved, revered, and cherished by the nations as an 
ancient and most precious thing. I behold her ris- 
ing in the energy of a second birth, when nations 
that have held their heads high are humbled in the 
dust. And I hail thee, O mother Erin, and say to 
thee: 

"The nations are fallen, but thou still art young, 
Thy sun is but rising when others' have set; 
And though slavery's clouds round thy morning have hung, 
The full noon of freedom shall beam round thee yet." 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 251 

Destiny of Amebica.— Stoky. 

We stand the latest and, if we fail, probably the 
last experiment of self-government by the people. 
We have begun it under circumstances of the most 
auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. 
Our growth has never been checked by the oppression 
of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been en- 
feebled by the vices or the luxuries of the Old World. 
Such as we are we have been from the beginning — - 
simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-govern- 
ment and self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us 
and any formidable foe. 

Within our own territory, stretching through many 
degrees of latitude and longitude, we have the choice 
of many products and many means of independence. 
The government is mild. The press and religion are 
free. Knowledge reaches or may reach every home. 
What fairer prospects of success could be presented? 
What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime 
end? What more is necessary than for the people to 
preserve what they themselves have created? 

Already has the age caught the spirit of our insti- 
tutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and 
snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused 
itself into the life-blood of Europe and w T armed the 
sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. 
It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the 
north, and, moving onward to the south, has opened 
to Greece the lessons of her better days. 

Can it be that America, under such circumstances, 
can betray herself? that she is to be added to the cat- 
alogue of republics the inscription upon whose ruins 
is: "They were, but they are not?" Forbid it, my 
countrymen; forbid it, Heaven! I call on you, my 



252 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, by the dear 
ashes that repose in this precious soil, by all you are 
and all you hope to be, resist every encroachment upon 
your liberties; resist every attempt to fetter your 
consciences, or smother your public schools, or extin- 
guish your system of public instruction. 

I call on you, mothers, by that which never fails in 
woman, the love of your offspring, teach them as they 
climb on your knees and lean on your bosom, the 
blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with 
their baptismal vows, to be true to their country and 
never forget or forsake her. 

I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons 
you are, whose inheritance you possess. Life can 
never be too short which brings nothing but disgrace 
and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if nec- 
essary in defense of your country. 

I call upon you, old men, for your counsels and 
your prayers and your benedictions. May not your 
gray hairs go down to the grave with the recollection 
that you have lived in vain! May not your last sun 
sink in the west upon a nation of slaves! 

No; I read in the destiny of my country far better 
hopes, far brighter visions. We who are assembled 
here must soon be gathered to the congregation of 
other days. The time for our departure is near at 
hand, to make way for our children upon the theater 
of life. May he who at the distance of another cent- 
ury shall stand here to celebrate this day still look 
round on a free, virtuous, happy people! 



A Withering Invective. — S. S. Prentiss. 
Need I dwell longer upon this subject? Need I say 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 253 

that the defendants are no murderers? That they 
acted in self-defense, and took life from necessity, not 
from malice? 

But there is a murderer, and, strange to say, his 
name appears upon the indictment, not as a criminal, 
but as a prosecutor. His garments are wet with the 
blood of those upon whose deaths you hold this solemn 
inquest. Yonder he sits, allaying for a moment the 
hunger of that fierce vulture, conscience, by casting 
before it the food of pretending regret, and false but 
apparent eagerness for justice. He hopes to appease 
the manes of his slaughtered victims — victims to his 
falsehood and treachery — by sacrificing upon their 
graves a hecatomb of innocent men. By base misrep- 
resentation of the conduct of the defendants he in- 
duced his prudent friends to attempt a vindication of 
his pretended wrongs by violence and bloodshed. His 
clansmen gathered at his call, and followed him for 
vengeance; but when the fight began, and the keen 
weapons clashed in the sharp conflict — where was this 
wordy warrior? Ay, "Where was Boberick then?" 
No " blast upon his bugle horn " encouraged his com- 
panions as they were laying down their lives in his 
quarrel; no gleam of his dagger indicated a desire to 
avenge their fall. With treacherous cowardice he left 
them to their fate, and all his vaunted courage ended 
in ignominious flight. Sad and gloomy is the path 
that lies before him. You will in a few moments 
dash untasted from his lips the sweet cup of revenge, 
to quaff whose intoxicating contents he has paid a 
price that would have purchased the goblet of the 
Egyptian queen. I behold gathering around him, 
thick and fast, dark and corroding cares. That face 
which looks so ruddy, and even now is flushed with 



254 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

shame and conscious guilt, will from this day grow 
pale until the craven blood shall refuse to visit his 
haggard cheek. In his broken and distorted sleep 
his dreams will be more fearful than those of the 
"false, perjured Clarence;" and around his waking 
pillow, in the deep hour of night, will flit the ghosts of 
his actions, shrieking their curses in his shrinking 
ear. Upon his head rests all the blood shed in this 
unfortunate strife. But I dismiss him, and do con- 
sign him to the furies, trusting in all charity that the 
terrible punishment he must suffer from the scorpion- 
lash of a guilty conscience will be considered in his 
last account. 

Teibute to Washington. — Harbison. 
Hard, hard indeed was the contest for freedom 
and the struggle for independence. The golden sun of 
liberty had nearly set in the gloom of an eternal night, 
ere its radiant beams illumined our western horizon. 
Had not the tutelar saint of Columbia hovered around 
the American camp, and presided o'er her destinies, 
freedom must have met with an untimely grave. Nev- 
er can we sufficiently admire the wisdom of those 
statesmen and the skill and bravery of those uncon- 
querable veterans, who, by their unwearied exertions 
in the cabinet and in the field, achieved for us the 
glorious revolution. Never can we duly appreciate 
the merits of a Washington who, with but a handful 
of undisciplined yeomanry, triumphed over a royal 
army, and prostrated the lion of England at the feet 
of the American eagle. His name — so terrible to his 
foes, so welcome to his friends — shall live forever upon 
the brightest page of the historian, and be remem- 
bered with the warmest emotions of gratitude and 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 255 

pleasure by those whom he has contributed to make 
happy, and by all mankind when kings and princes 
and nobles for ages shall have sunk into their mer- 
ited oblivion. Unlike them, he needs not the assist- 
ance of the sculptor or architect to perpetuate his 
memory; he needs no princely dome, no monumental 
pile, no stately pyramid, whose towering height shall 
pierce the stormy clouds, and rear its lofty head to 
heaven, to tell posterity his fame. His deeds, his 
worthy deeds alone have rendered him immortal! 
When oblivion shall have swept away thrones, king- 
doms, and principalities; when every vestige of hu- 
man greatness and grandeur and glory shall have 
moldered into dust, and the last period of time become 
extinct — eternity itself shall catch the glowing theme 
and dwell with increasing rapture on his name. 



Criminality of Dueling. — Nott. 
Hamilton yielded to the force of an imperious cus- 
tom; and yielding, he sacrificed a life in which all 
had an interest; and he is lost — lost to his country, 
lost to his family, lost to us. For this act, because 
he disclaimed it, and was penitent, I forgive him. 
Bat there are those whom I cannot forgive. I mean 
not his antagonist— over whose erring steps, if there 
be tears in heaven, a pious mother looks down and 
weeps. If he be capable of feeling, he suffers already 
all that humanity can suffer; suffers, and wherever 
he may fly will suffer, with the poignant recollection 
of having taken the life of one who was too magnani- 
mous in return to attempt his own. Had he known 
this, it must have paralyzed his arm while he pointed 
at so incorruptible a bosom the instrument of death. 



256 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Does he know this now, his heart, if it be not ada- 
mant, must soften; if it be not ice, it must melt. But 
on this article I forbear. Stained with blood as he is, 
if he is penitent, I forgive him; and if he be not, be- 
fore these a] tars, where all of us appear as suppliants, 
I wish not to excite your vengeance, but rather, in be- 
half of an object rendered wretched and pitiable by 
crime, to wake your prayers. 

But I have said, and I repeat it, there are those 
whom I cannot forgive. 

I cannot forgive that minister at the altar, who has 
hitherto forborne to remonstrate on the subject. I 
cannot forgive that public prosecutor, who, intrusted 
with the duty of avenging his country's wrongs, 
takes no measures to avenge them. I cannot forgive 
that judge on the bench, or that governor in the chair 
of state, who has lightly passed over such offenses. 
I cannot forgive the public in whose bosom the duel- 
ist finds a sanctuary. I cannot forgive you, my 
brethren, who till this late hour have been silent, 
while successive murders have been committed. No; 
I cannot forgive you that you have not, in common 
with the freemen of this State, raised your voice to 
the powers that be and loudly and explicitly demand- 
ed an execution of your laws; demanded this in a 
manner, which, if it did not reach the ear of govern- 
ment, would at least have reached the ear of Heaven, 
and have pleaded your excuse before the God that 
filleth it, in whose presence as I stand I should 
not feel myself innocent of the blood which crieth 
against us had I been silent. But I have not been 
silent. Many of you who hear me are my witnesses 
— the walls of yonder temple, where I have hereto- 
fore addressed you, are my witnesses how freely I 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 257 

have animadverted upon this subject, in the presence 
both of those who have violated the laws and of those 
whose indispensable duty it is to see the laws execut- 
ed on those who violate them. 

I enjoy another opportunity; and would to God I 
might be permitted to approach for once the last scene 
of death! Would to God I could there assemble on 
the one side the disconsolate mother with her seven 
fatherless children, and on the other those who ad- 
minister the justice of my country! Could I do this, 
I would point them to these sad objects. I would en- 
treat them by the agonies of bereaved fondness to 
listen to the widow's heart-felt groans, to mark the or- 
phans' sighs and tears; and having done this, I would 
uncover the breathless corpse of Hamilton, I would 
lift from his gaping wound his bloody mantle, I would 
hold it up to heaven before them, and I would ask, in 
the name of God I would ask, whether at the sight of 
it they felt no compunction. Te who have hearts of 
pity, ye who have experienced the anguish of dissolv- 
ing friendship, who have wept and still weep over the 
moldering ruins of departed kindred, ye can enter 
into this reflection. 

O thou disconsolate widow! robbed, so cruelly 
robbed, and in so short a time, both of a husband and 
a son! what must be the plenitude of thy sufferings! 
Could we approach thee, gladly would we drop the 
tear of sympathy and pour into thy bleeding bosom 
the balm of consolation. How could we comfort her 
whom God hath not comforted! To his throne let us 
lift up our voice and weep. O God, if thou art still 
the widow's husband and the father of the fatherless; 
if in the fullness of thy goodness there be yet mer- 
cies in store for miserable mortals, pity, O pity this 
17 



258 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

afflicted mother, and grant that her hapless orphans 
may find a benefactor, a father, in thee! 



The Patriot's Elysium.— Montgomery. 
There is a land, of every land the pride, 
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside; 
Where brighter suns dispense serener light, 
And milder moons imparadise the night; 
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth, 
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth. 
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores 
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, 
Views not a realm so beautiful and fair, 
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air; 
In every clime the magnet of his soul, 
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole; 
For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace, 
The heritage of nature's noblest race, 
There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, 
Where man, creation's tyrant, cast aside 
His sword and scepter, pageantry and pride, 
While in his softened looks benignly blend 
The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend. 
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife 
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life; 
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, 
An angel-guard of loves and graces lie; 
Around her knees domestic duties meet, 
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. 
Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found? 
Art thou a man? — a patriot? — look around; 
O thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, 
That land thy country and that spot thy home. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 259 

The Smack in School. — Anonymous. 
In a district school not far away, 
Mid Berkshire hills, one winter's day, 
Was humming with its wonted noise 
Of threescore mingled girls and boys; 
Some few npon their task intent, 
But more on furtive mischief bent; 
The while the master's downward look 
Was fastened on a copy-book; 
When suddenly, behind his back, 
Bose sharp and clear a rousing smack! 
As 'twere a battery of bliss 
Let off in one tremendous kiss! 
" What's that? " the startled master cries; 
"That thir," a little imp replies, 
" Wath William Willith, if you pleathe; 
I thaw him kith Thuthannah Peathe!" 
With frown to make a statue thrill, 
The master thundered: "Hither, Will!" 
Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, 
With stolen chattels on his back, 
Will hung his head in fear and shame, 
And to the awful presence came — 
A great, green, bashful simpleton, 
The butt of all good-natured fun. 
With smile suppressed and birch upraised, 
The threatener faltered: "I'm amazed 
That you, my biggest pupil, should 
Be guilty of an act so rude! 
Before the whole set school to boot; 
What evil genius put you to 't?" 
"'Twas she herself, sir," sobbed the lad; 
" I didn't mean to be so bad, 
And when Susannah shook her curls, 



260 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

And whispered I was 'fraid of girls, 

And dare not kiss a baby's doll, 

I couldn't stand it, sir, at all, 

But up and kissed her on the spot! 

I know — boo-hoo — I ought to not, 

But somehow from her looks — boo-hoo- 

I thought she kind o' wished me to!" 



Occasional Epilogue. — Anonymous. 
Our parts are performed and our speeches are ended, 
We are monarchs and courtiers and heroes no more; 
To a much humbler station again we've descended, 
And are now but the school-boys you've known us 
before. 

Farewell, then, our greatness; 'tis gone like a dream. 

"lis gone; but remembrance will often retrace 
The indulgent applause which rewarded each theme, 

And the heart-cheering smiles that enlivened each 
face. 

We thank you! — our gratitude words cannot tell, 
But deeply we feel it — to you it belongs; 

With heart-felt emotion we bid you farewell, 

And our feelings now thank you much more than 
our tongues. 

We'll strive to improve, since applauses thus cheer us, 
That our juvenile efforts may gain your kind looks, 

And we hope to convince you the next time you hear us 
That praise has but sharpened our relish for books. 



Press On.— Benjamin. 
Press on ! surmount the rocky steps, 
Climb boldy o'er the torrent's arch; 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 261 

He fails alone who feebly creeps, 

He wins who dares the hero's march. 

Be thou a hero! let thy might 
Tramp on eternal snows the way, 

And, through the ebon walls of night, 
Hew down a passage into day. 

Press on! if once and twice thy feet 

Slip back and tumble, harder try; 
From him who never dreads to meet 

Danger and death they are sure to fly. 
To coward ranks the bullet speeds, 

While on their breasts who never quail 
Gleams, guardian of chivalric deeds, 

Bright courage, like a coat of mail. 

Press on! if fortune play thee false 

To-day, to-morrow she'll be true; 
Whom now she sinks she now exalts, 

Taking old gifts and granting new. 
The wisdom of the present hour 

Makes up for follies past and gone; 
To weakness strength succeeds, and power 

From frailty springs — press on, press on! 

Therefore, press on! and reach the goal, 

And gain the prize, and wear the crown; 
Faint not! for to the steadfast sonl 

Come wealth and honor and renown. 
To thine own self be true, and keep 

Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil; 
Press on! and thou shalt surely reap 

A heavenly harvest for thy toil! 



Defense of a Client. — S. S. Pbentiss. 
It is said that my client had no right to interfere in 



262 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

defense of his brother; so says the commonwealth's 
attorney. Go, gentlemen, and ask your mothers and 
sisters whether that be law. I refer you to no musty 
tomes, but to the living volumes of nature. What! a 
man not permitted to defend his brother against con- 
spirators, against assassins, who are crushing out the 
very life of their bruised and powerless victim? Why 
he who wo aid shape his conduct by such a principle 
does not deserve to have a brother or a friend. 

To fight for self is but the result of an honest in- 
stinct which we have in common with the brutes. 
To defend those who are dear to us is the highest ex- 
ercise of the principle of self-defense. It nourishes 
all the noblest social qualities, and constitutes the 
germ of patriotism itself. 

Why is the step of the Kentuckian free as that of 
the bounding deer; firm, manly, and confident as that 
of the Macgregor when the foot was on the heather 
of his native hills, and his eye on the peak of Ben 
Lomond? It is because he feels independent and 
proud; independent in the knowledge of his rights, 
proud in the generous consciousness of ability and 
courage to defend them, not only in his own person, 
but in the persons of those who are dear to him. 

It was not the blood that would desert a brother or 
a friend which swelled the hearts of your fathers in 
the "olden time" when, in defense of those they 
loved, they sought the red savage through all the 
fastnesses of his native forest. It was not such blood 
that was poured out, free as a gushing torrent, upon 
the dark banks of the melancholy Raisin, when all 
Kentucky armed her warrior sires. They were as 
bold and true as ever fought beneath a plume. 

The Roncesvalles Pass, where fell before the oppos- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 263 

ing lance the harnessed chivalry of Spain, looked not 
upon a braver or a better band. Kentucky has no 
law which precludes a man from defending himself, 
his brother, or his friend. 

Better for my client had he never been born than 
that he should have failed in his duty on this occa- 
sion. 

The Best of Liquok. 

There, there gushing up from the bosom of the 
earth, with a sound like a shout of joy, there is the 
liquor which God, the eternal, brew T s for his chil- 
dren. 

Not in the simmering still over smoking fires, 
choked with poisonous gasses and mid sickening- 
odors and rank corruption, doth your Father in 
heaven prepare the precious essence of life — pure, 
cold water; but in the green glade and grassy dell, 
where the red deer wanders, and the child loves to 
play, there God himself brews it; and low down in 
the deepest valleys, w T here fountains murmur and the 
rills sing; and high upon the mountain-tops, where 
the naked granite glitters like gold in the sun, where 
the storm-cloud broods, and the thunder storms crash; 
and away far out on the wide, wide se»a, where Hur- 
ricane howls music, and big waves roar chorus — 
there, there he brews it, that beverage of life — health- 
giving water! And everywhere it is a thing of 
beauty: gleaming in the dew-drop, shining in the 
ice gem, where the trees are turned to living jewels, 
spreading a golden veil over the setting sun, or a 
white gauze round the midnight moon, or sporting 
in the cataract; there you see it sleeping in the 
glacier, dancing in the hail-shower, folding bright 



264 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

snow-curtains softly above the wintery world, and 
weaving the many-colored iris, that seraph zone of 
the sky, whose warp is the rainbow of the earth, whose 
woof is the sunbeam of heaven, all checked over with 
celestial flowers by the mystic hand of refraction. 
Still always is it beautiful — that blessed cold water! 
No poison bubbles at its brink; its foam brings not 
madness and murder; no blood stains its liquid glass; 
pale and starving orphans weep no burning tears in 
its clear depths; no drunkard's shrieking ghost from 
the grave curses it in words of despair. Speak, 
speak out, my friends, would you exchange it for the 
demon's drink, alcohol? 

Intempekance. 
The common calamities of life may be endured. 
Poverty, sickness, and even death, may be met; but 
there is that which, while it brings all these with it, 
is worse than all these together. When the husband 
and father forgets the duties he once delighted 
to fulfill, and by slow degrees becomes the creature 
of intemperance, there enters into his house the sor- 
row that rends the spirit, that cannot be alleviated, 
that will not be comforted. It is here above all, 
where she who has ventured every thing feels that 
every thing is lost. Woman — silent, suffering, devot- 
ed woman — here bends to her direst affliction. The 
measure of her woe is, in truth, full, whose husband 
is a drunkard. Who shall protect her, when he is her 
insulter, her oppressor? What shall delight her, 
when she shrinks from the sight of his face, and 
trembles at the sound of his voice? The hearth is 
indeed dark, that he has made desolate. There, 
through the dull midnight hour, her griefs are whis- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 2G5 

pered to herself; her bruised heart bleeds in secret. 
There, while the cruel author of her distress is 
drowned in distant revelry, she holds her solitary 
vigil, waiting yet dreading his return that will only 
wring from her, by his unkindness, tears even more 
scalding than those she shed over his transgression. 

To fling a deeper gloom across the present, memory 
turns back and broods upon the past. Like the 
recollection of the sun-stricken pilgrim of the cool 
spring that he drank at in the morning, the joys of 
other days come over her as if only to mock her 
parched and weary spirit. She recalls the ardent 
lover, whose graces won her from the home of her 
infancy; the enraptured father, who bent with such 
delight over his newborn children; and she asks if 
this can really be he ; this sunken being, who has 
now nothing for her but the sot's disgusting brutality, 
nothing for those abashed and trembling children 
but the sot's disgusting example! 

Can we wonder that, amid these agonizing mo- 
ments, the tender cords of violated affection should 
snap asunder; that the scorned and deserted wife 
should confess "there is no killing like that which 
kills the heart; " that though it would have been hard 
for her to kiss for the last time the cold lips of her 
dead husband, and lay his body forever in the dust, 
it is harder to behold him so debasing life that even 
his death would be greeted in mercy? Had he died 
in the light of his goodness, bequeathing to his fam- 
ily the inheritance of an untarnished name, the ex- 
ample of virtue that should blossom for his sons 
and daughters from the tomb — though she would 
have wept bitterly indeed, the tears of grief would 
not have been also the tears of shame. But to behold 



266 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

him fallen away from the station he once adorned, 
degraded from eminence to ignominy — at home, turn- 
ing his dwelling to darkness, and its holy endear- 
ments to mockery; abroad, thrust from the compan- 
ionship of the worthy, a self-branded outlaw; this is 
the woe that the wife feels is more dreadful than 
death, that she mourns over as worse than widow- 
hood. 

Address to the Army of Italy. 
Soldiers, you are precipitated like a torrent from 
the heights of the Apennines; you have overthrown 
and dispersed all that dared oppose your march. 
Piedmont, rescued from Austrian tyranny, is left to 
its natural sentiment of regard and friendship to the 
French. Milan is yours; and the republican standard 
is displayed throughout all Lombardy. The dukes ot 
Parma and Modena are indebted for their political 
existence only to your generosity. The army, which 
so proudly menaced you, has had no other barrier 
than its dissolution to oppose your invincible cour- 
age. The Po, the Ticino, the Adda, could not re- 
tard you a single day. The vaunted bulwarks of Italy 
were insufficient. You swept them with the same 
rapidity that you did the Apennines. Those successes 
have carried joy into the bosom of the country. 
Your representatives decreed a festival dedicated to 
your victories, and to be celebrated throughout all 
the communes of the republic. Now your fathers, 
your mothers, your wives, and your sisters will re- 
joice in your success, and take pride in their relation 
to you. Yes, soldiers, you have done much; but 
more still remains for you to do. Shall it be said of 
us that we know how to conquer, but not to profit by 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 267 

our victories? Shall posterity reproach us with 
having found a Capua in Lombardy? But already I 
see you fly to arms. You are fatigued with an in- 
active repose. You lament the days that are lost to 
your glory! Well, then, let us proceed; we have other 
forced marches to make, other enemies to subdue, 
more laurels to acquire, and more injuries to avenge. 
Let those who have unsheathed the dagger of civil 
war in France, who have basely assassinated our min- 
isters, who have burned our ships at Toulon — let them 
tremble! the knell of vengeance has already tolled! 
But to quiet the apprehensions of the people we de- 
clare ourselves the friends of all, and particularly of 
those who are the descendants of Brutus, of Scipio, 
and those other great men whom we have taken for 
our models. To re-establish the capital; to replace 
the statues of those heroes who have rendered it im- 
mortal; to rouse the Roman people, entranced in so 
many ages of slavery — these shall be the fruit of our 
victories. It will be an epoch for the admiration of 
posterity; you will enjoy the immortal glory of chang- 
ing the aspect of affairs in the finest part of Europe. 
The free people of France, not regardless of modera- 
tion, shall accord to Europe a glorious peace; but it 
will indemnify itself for the sacrifices of every kind 
which it has been making for six years past. You 
will again be restored to your firesides and homes, 
and your fellow-citizens, pointing you out, shall say: 
" There goes one who belonged to the army of Italy." 

Never Give Up. 
Never give up! It is wiser and better 

Always to hope, than once to despair; 
Fling off the load of doubt's heavy fetter, 



268 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

And break the dark spell of tyrannical fear. 
Never give up, or the burden may sink you; 

Providence kindly has mingled the cap, 
And in all the trials or troubles, bethink you, 

The watch-word of life must be: "Never give up! " 

Never give up! though the grape-shot may rattle, 

Or the full thunder-cloud over you burst, 
Stand like a rock, and the storm or the battle 

Little shall harm you, though doing their worst. 
Never give up ! if adversity presses, 

Providence wisely has mingled the cup, 
And the best counsel in all your distresses. 

Is the stout watch-word of — " Never give up ! " 



Warning to the Young. 
Could I call around me, in one vast asse'mbly, the 
young men of this nation, I would say: "Hopes of my 
country, blessed be ye of the Lord, now in the dew of 
your youth ! But look well to your footsteps, for vi- 
pers and scorpions and adders are around your way. 
Look at the generation who have just preceded you. 
The morning of their life was cloudless, and it dawned 
as brightly as your own. But behold, now, the smit- 
ten, enfeebled, inflamed, debauched, idle, poor, irre- 
ligious, and vicious, with halting step, dragging on- 
ward to meet an early grave. Their bright prospects 
are clouded, and their sun is set, never to rise. No 
house of their own receives them, while from poorer 
to poorer tenements they descend, as improvidence 
dries up their resources. And now, who are those 
that wait on their footsteps, with muffled faces and 
sabled garments? That is a father, and that is a 
mother, whose gray hairs are coming with sorrow to 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 269 

the grave. That is a sister weeping over evils which 
she cannot arrest; and there is the broken-hearted 
wife; and there are the children — hapless innocents! 
— for whom their father has provided no inheritance, 
save one of dishonor and nakedness and woe! And 
is this, beloved youth, the history of your course? 
In this scene of desolation, do you see the image of 
your future selves? Is this the poverty and the dis- 
ease, which, as an armed man, shall take hold on you ? 
And are your relatives and friends to succeed those 
who now move on, in this mournful procession, weep- 
ing as they go? Yes, bright as your morning now 
opens, and high as your hopes beat, this is your noon, 
and your night, unless you shun those habits of in- 
temperance which have thus early made theirs a day 
of clouds and of thick darkness. If you frequent 
places of evening resort for social drinking; if you 
set out with drinking, daily, a little, prudently, tem- 
perately — it is yourselves, which, as in a glass, you 

behold." 

Fate of the Indians. 

Everywhere at the approach of the white man the 
Indians fade away. We hear the rustling of their 
f ootstepsj like that of the withered leaves of autumn ; 
and they are gone forever. They pass mournfully by 
us, and return no more. 

Two centuries ago the smoke of their wigwams 
and the fire of their councils rose in every valley. 
The shouts of victory and the war dance rung through 
the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and 
deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests; and 
the hunter's trace and the dark encampment startled 
the wild beasts in their lairs. 

Where now are the villages and warriors and youth, 



270 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

the sachems, and the tribes, the hunters and their 
families? They have perished. They are consumed. 
Has wasting pestilence alone done the mighty work? 
No — nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier 
power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their 
heart cores — a plague, which the touch of the white 
man communicated, a poison which betrayed them into 
a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not 
a single region which they may now call their own. 

Already the last feeble remnants of the race are on 
their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them 
leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, 
the women, and the warriors, "few and faint, yet fear- 
less still." The ashes are cold on their native hearths. 
The smoke no longer carls round their lowly cabins. 
They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white 
man is upon their heels, for terror or dispatch; but 
they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of 
their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon 
the groves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they 
utter no cries; they heave no groans. 

There is something in their hearts which passes 
speech. There is something in their looks, not of 
vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which 
stifles both, which chokes all utterance. It is cour- 
age, absorbed in despair. They linger but for a mo- 
ment. Their look is onward. They have passed the 
fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them; no, 
never. They know and feel that there is for them 
still one remove farther, not distant, nor unseen. It 
is to the general burial-ground of their race. 



Kegulus to the Carthaginians. — E. Kellogg. 
Ye doubtless thought — for ye judge of Roman virt- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 271 

ne by your own — that I would break my plighted oath, 
rather than, returning, brook your vengeance. I might 
give reason for this, in Punic comprehension, foolish 
act of mine. I might speak of those eternal princi- 
ples which makes death for one's country a pleasure, 
and not a pain. But, by great Jupiter! methinks I 
should debase myself to talk of such high things to 
you; to you, expert in womanly inventions; to you, 
well-skilled to drive a treacherous trade with simple 
Africans for ivory and gold! If the bright blood that 
fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike ancestry, 
were like that slimy ooze which stagnates in your ar- 
teries, I had remained at home, and broke my plighted 
oath to save my life. 

I am a Roman citizen; therefore have I returned, 
that ye might work your will on this mass of flesh and 
bones, that I esteem no higher than the rags that cover 
them. Here, in your capitol, I defy you. Have I not 
conquered your armies, fired your towns, and dragged 
your generals at my chariot w T heels, since first my 
youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think 
to see me crouch and cower before a tamed and shat- 
tered Senate? The tearing of flesh and rending of 
sinews is but pastime compared with the mental ago- 
ny that heaves my frame. 

The moon has scarce waned since the proudest of 
Rome's proud matrons, the mother upon whose breast 
I slept, and whose fair brow so oft had bent over me 
before the noise of battle had stirred my blood or the 
fierce toil of war nerved my sinews, did with fondest 
memory of by-gone hours entreat me to remain. I 
have seen her, who, when my country called me to the 
field, did buckle on my harness with trembling hands, 
while the tears fell thick and fast down the hard corse- 



272 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

let scales. I have seen her tear her gray locks and 
beat her aged breast, as on her knees she begged me 
not to return to Carthage ; and all the assembled Sen- 
ate of Rome, grave and reverend men, proffered the 
same request. The puny torments which ye have in 
store to welcome me withal shall be to what I have 
endured even as the murmur of a summer's brook to 
the fierce roar of angry surges on a rocky beach. 

Last night as I lay fettered in my dungeon I heard 
a strange, ominous sound; it seemed like the distant 
march of some vast army, their harness clanging as 
they marched, when suddenly there stood by me Xan- 
thippus, the Spartan general, by whose aid you con- 
quered me, and, with a voice low as when the solemn 
wind moans through the leafless forest, he thus ad- 
dressed me: "Roman, I come to bid thee curse, with 
thy dying breath, this fated city. Know that in an 
evil moment the Carthaginian generals, furious that I 
had conquered thee, their conqueror, did basely mur- 
der me. And then they thought to stain my bright- 
est honor. But, for this foul deed, the wrath of Jove 
shall rest upon them here and hereafter." And then 
he vanished. 

And now, go bring your sharpest torments, The 
woes I see impending over this guilty realm shall be 
enough to sweeten death, though every nerve and ar- 
tery were a shooting pang. I die; but my death shall 
prove a proud triumph. And for every drop of blood 
ye from my veins do draw, your own shall flow in 
rivers. Woe to Carthage! Woe to the proud city of 
the waters! I see thy nobles wailing at the feet of 
Roman senators; thy citizens in terror; thy ships in 
flames. I hear the victorious shouts of Rome. I see 
her eagles glittering on thy ramparts. Proud city, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 273 

thou art doomed! The curse of God is on thee — a 
clinging, wasting curse. It shall not leave thy gates 
till hungry flames shall lick the fretted gold from off 
thy proud palaces, and every brook runs crimson to the 

sea. 

The Famine in Ireland. — S. S. Prentiss. 

There lies upon the other side of the wide Atlantic 
a beautiful island, famous in story and in song. It 
has given to the world more than its share of genius 
and of greatness. It has been prolific in statesmen, 
warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have 
fought successfully in all battles but its own. In wit 
and humor it has no equal; while its harp, like its 
history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy 
pathos. In this fair region God has seen fit to send 
the most terrible of all those fearful 'ministers who 
fulfill his inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed 
to give her increase; the common mother has forgot- 
ten her offspring, and her breast no longer affords 
them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt 
and ghastly famine, has seized a nation with its stran- 
gling grasp, and unhappy Ireland in the sad woes of 
the present forgets for a moment the gloomy history 
of the past. 

In battle, in the fullness of his pride and strength, 
little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings 
his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed 
by the sharp steel. But he who dies of hunger wres- 
tles alone, day by day, with his grim and unrelenting 
enemy. He has no friends to cheer him in the terri- 
ble conflict, for if he had friends, how could he die 
of hunger? 

He lias not the hot blood of the soldier to sustain 
him ; for his foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins. 
18 



274 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Who will hesitate to give his mite to avert such 
awful results? Give, then, generously and freely. 
Recollect that in so doing you are exercising one of 
the most Godlike qualities of your nature, and at the 
same time enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of 
life. We ought to thank our Maker that he has per- 
mitted us to exercise equally with himself that no- 
blest of even the divine attributes — benevolence. 
Go home and look at your family, smiling in rosy 
health, and then think of the pale, famine-pinched 
cheeks of the children of poor Ireland, and you will 
give according to your store, even as a bountiful 
Providence has given to you — not grudgingly, but 
with an open hand; for the quality of benevolence, 
like that of mercy, 

Is not strained : 
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed : 
It blesses him that gives, and him that takes. 



Nature. — Dow, Jr. 
My dear friends, it matters not upon whichsoever 
side we turn our eyes, we behold such beauty in its 
primitive nakedness as cannot fail to captivate the 
heart of every true worshiper of the God of nature, 
and make him feel as though ten thousand caterpillars 
were crawling up and down the ossified railway of 
his back. Look at yonder myriad of stars that glittei 
and sparkle from the dome of heaven's high concave. 
Say, is there not beauty in these ? Ay, there is beau- 
ty magnificent in these little celestial trinkets that 
stud the ebon brow of night — shining as they do, 
like a multitude of beacon lights of glory in the blue- 
black of eternity, or like so many cat's eyes in a 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 275 

windowless garret. Observe the silvery moon, pale- 
faced Cynthia, wandering Luna, or whatever you 
choose to call her; see how gracefully she promenades 
the self-same path which was laid out for her at the 
beginning of the world. Look at the resplendent 
sun; see how it has maintained its unsullied bright- 
ness through the rust-gathering ages of time. Not a 
single thread has been lost from its golden fringe, 
and not even a fly-speck has marred its splendor; but 
it is to-day the same beautiful, lovely object that it 
was when it first burst upon paradise, and rolled 
back the darkness of chaos into the unknown region 
of nowhere. 

There is beauty in the sunset. Who can look at 
all the glories of an autumnal twilight, and not have 
the fuzz of his hands rise up in rapture? O it is, 
by all odds, the grandest and sublimest picture in the 
academy of nature! At the festooned gates of the 
west angels of peace and loveliness have furled their 
purple wings, and are sweetly sleeping with their heads 
on pillows of amber, over-canopied with curtains of 
damask and crimson, tempting poor mortals like 
us to climb up the ladder of imagination arid steal 
kisses by the bushel. When the morning, too, as my 
friend Hudibras observes, like a boiled lobster, be- 
gins to turn from brown to red, there is beauty of the 
tallest order. Yes, when Aurora hangs out her red 
under-garment from her chamber window, prepares 
her perfumed toilet, and sweeps out the last speck of 
darkness from the Oriental parlor, there is such 
blushing beauty resting upon the eastern hill-tops 
as cannot fail to be appreciated by any one whose 
heart-strings are not composed of catgut and horse- 
hair. 



276 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Be Faithful to Your Country. — Everett. 

When the Old World afforded no longer any hope, 
it pleased Heaven to open this last refuge of human- 
ity. The attempt has begun, is going on, freed from 
foreign corruption, on the broadest scale, and under 
the most benignant auspices; and it certainly rests 
with us to solve the great problem in human society; 
to settle, and that forever, the momentous question 
whether mankind can be trusted with a purely pop- 
ular system. 

One might almost think, without extravagance, 
that the departed wise and good of all places and 
times are looking down from their happy seats to 
witness what shall now be done by us; that they who 
lavished their treasures and their blood of old, who 
labored and suffered, who spoke and wrote, who 
fought and perished, in the one great cause of free- 
dom and truth, are now hanging from their orbs on 
high, over the last solemn experiment of humanity. 

As I have wandered over the spots once the scenes 
of their labors, and mused among the prostrate col- 
umns of their seriate-houses and forums, I have 
seemed almost to hear a voice from the tombs of the 
departed ages — from the sepulchers of the nations 
which died before the sight of America gladdened 
the world. They exhort us, they adjure us to be 
faithful to our trusts; they implore us by the long 
trials of struggling humanity, by the blessed memory 
of the departed, by the dear faith which has been 
plighted by pure hands to the holy cause of truth 
and man, by the awful secrets of the prison houses 
where the sons of freedom have been immured, by 
the noble heads which have been brought to the 
block, by the wrecks of time, by the eloquent ruins 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 277 

of nations, they conjure us not to quench the light 
which is rising on the world. Greece cries to us by 
the convulsed lips of her poisoned, dying Demos- 
thenes; and Rome pleads with us in the mute per- 
suasions of her mangled Tully. 

Yes, such is the exhortation which calls on us to 
exert our powers, to employ our time, and consecrate 
our labors in the cause of our native land. When 
we engage in that solemn study, the history of our 
race; when we survey the progress of man from his 
cradle in the East to these last limits of his wander- 
ing; when we behold him ever flying westward from 
civil and religious thralldom, bearing his household 
gods over mountains and seas, seeking rest and find- 
ing none, but still pursuing the flying bow of promise 
to the glittering hills which it spans in Hesperian 
climes, we cannot but exclaim with Bishop Berkeley 
the generous prelate of England, who bestowed his 
benefactions as well as blessings on our country: 

" Westward the star of empire takes its way ; 

The four first acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the drama with the day; 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 



Chakactek of Pitt. — Robertsoit. 
The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had 
not reached him. * Original and unaccommodating, 
the features of his character had the hardihood of 
antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty itself. 
No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious poli- 
tics, no idle contests for ministerial victories sunk 
him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, 
persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England 



278 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

and his ambition fame. Without dividing, he de- 
stroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal 
age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With 
one hand he smote the house of Bourbon and wielded 
in the other the democracy of England. The sight of 
his mind was infinite, and his schemes were to affect 
not England, not the present age only, but Europe 
and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which 
these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, 
always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding 
animated by ardor and enlightened by prophecy. 

The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and 
indolent were unknown to him. No domestic diffi- 
culties, no domestic weakness reached him; but aloof 
from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by 
its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system 
to counsel and to decide. 

A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so 
authoritative astonished a corrupt age, and the treas- 
ury trembled at the name of Pitt through all the 
classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, 
that she had found defects in this statesman, and 
talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and 
much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of 
his country and the calamities of his enemies an- 
swered and refuted her. 

Nor were his political abilities his only talents. His 
eloquence was an era in the senate, peculiar and spon- 
taneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and 
instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demos- 
thenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully: it re- 
sembled sometimes the thunder and sometimes the 
music of the spheres. He did not conduct the under- 
standing through the painful subtlety of argumenta- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 279 

tion, nor was he forever upon the rack o£ exertion, but 
rather lightened on the subject, and reached the point 
by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of his. 
eye, were felt, but could not be followed. 

Upon the whole, there was something in this man 
that could create, subvert, or reform: an understand- 
ing, a spirit, an eloquence, to summon mankind to so- 
ciety, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to 
rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded au- 
thority; something that could establish or overwhelm 
an empire, and strike a blow in the world that would 
resound through the universe. 



To the Eagle. 
Bird of the broad and sweeping wing, 

Thy home is high in heaven, 
Where wide the storms their banners fling, 

And the tempest clouds are driven. 
Thy throne is on the mountain-top; 

Thy fields the boundless air; 
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop 

The skies, thy dwellings are. 

Thou sittest like a thing of light, 

Amid the noontide blaze; 
The midday sun is clear and bright, 

It cannot dim thy gaze. 
Thy pinions to the rushing blast 

O'er the bursting billow spread, 
Where the vessel plunges, hurry past, 

Like an angel of the dead. 

Lord of the boundless realm of air, 
In thy imperial name 



280 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

The hearts of the bold and ardent dare 

The dangerous path of fame. 
Beneath the shade of thy golden wings 

The Roman legions bore 
From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs 

Their pride to the polar shore. 

For thee they fought, for thee they fell, 

And their oath was on thee laid; 
To thee the clarions raised their swell, 

And the dying warrior prayed. 
Thou wert, through an age of death and fears, 

The image of pride and power, 
Till the gathered rage of a thousand years 

Burst forth in one awful hour. 

And then a deluge of wrath it came, 

And the nations shook with dread; 
And it swept the earth till its fields were flame, 

And piled with the mingled dead. 
Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood, 

With the low and crouching slave; 
And together lay, in a shroud of blood, 

The coward and the brave. 



Character of Blennerhassett. — Wirt. 
Who then is Blennerhassett? A native of Ireland, 
a man of letters, who fled from the storms of his own 
country to find quiet in ours. Possessing himself of 
a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a pal- 
ace, and decorates it with every romantic embellish- 
ment of fancy. A shrubbery that Shenstone might 
have envied blooms around him; music that might 
have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his; an 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 281 

extensive library spreads its treasures before him; a 
philosophical apparatus offers to him all the secrets 
and mysteries of nature. 

The evidence would convince you that this is but a 
faint picture of the real life. In the midst of all this 
peace, this innocent simplicity and this tranquillity, 
this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart, 
the destroyer comes: he comes to change this par- 
adise into a hell. A stranger presents himself. In- 
troduced to their civilities by the high rank which he 
had lately held in his country, he soons finds his way 
to their hearts by the dignity and elegance of his de- 
meanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and 
the seductive and fascinating power of his address. 

The conquest was not difficult. Innocence is ever 
simple and credulous. Conscious of no design itself, 
it suspects none in others. It wears no guard before 
its breast. Every door and portal and avenue of the 
heart is thrown open, and all who choose may enter. 
Such was the state of Eden when the serpent entered 
its bowers. The prisoner, in a more engaging form, 
winding himself into the open and unpracticed heart 
of the unfortunate Blennerhassett, found but little 
difficulty in changing the native character of that 
heart and the objects of its affections. By degrees 
he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition. 
He breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a 
daring and desperate thirst for glory; an ardor pant- 
ing for great enterprises, for all the storm and bustle 
and hurricane of life. 

In a short time the whole man is changed, and ev- 
ery object of his former delight is relinquished. No 
more he enjoys the tranquil scene, because it has be- 
come flat and insipid to his taste. His books are 



282 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

abandoned. His retort and crucible are thrown 
aside. His shrubbery blooms and breathes its fra- 
grance upon the air in vain: he likes it not. His ear 
no longer drinks the rich melody of music: it longs 
for the trumpet's clangor and the cannon's roar. 
Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no long- 
er affects him ; and the angel smile of his wife, which 
hitherto touched his bosom with ecstacy so unspeak- 
able, is now unseen and unfelt. 

Greater objects have taken possession of his soul. 
His imagination has been dazzled by visions of dia- 
dems, of stars and garters, and titles of nobility. He 
has been taught to burn, with restless emulation, at 
the names of great heroes and conquerors. His en- 
chanted island is destined soon to relapse into a wil- 
derness; and in a few months we find the beautiful 
and tender partner of his bosom, whom he lately per- 
mitted not the winds of heaven to visit too roughly, 
we find her shivering at midnight on the winter banks 
of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents 
that froze as they fell. 

Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his 
interest and his happiness, thus seduced from the 
paths of innocence and peace, thus confounded in the 
toils that were deliberately spread for him, and over- 
whelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of an- 
other—this man, thus ruined and undone, and made 
to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of 
guilt and treason, this man is to be called the prin- 
cipal offender, while he by whom he was thus plunged 
in misery is comparatively innocent, a mere acces- 
sory. 

Is this reason? Is it law? Is it humanity? Sir, 
neither the human heart nor the human understand- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 283 

ing will bear a perversion so monstrous ana absurd, 
so shocking to the soul, so revolting to reason! Let 
Aaron Burr, then, not shrink from the high destina- 
tion which he has courted; and having already ruined 
Blennerhassett in fortune, character, and happiness 
'forever, let him not attempt to finish the tragedy by 
thrusting that ill-fated man between himself and pun- 
ishment. 

Chaeacter of William Penn. — Duponceau. 

William Penn stands first among the lawgivers 
whose names and deeds are recorded in history. Shall 
we compare with him Lycurgus, Solon, Romulus, 
those founders of military commonwealths, who or- 
ganized their citizens in dreadful array against the 
rest of their species? AVhat benefit did mankind 
derive from their boasted institutions? Interrogate 
the shades of those who fell in the mighty contests 
between Athens and Lacedsemon, between Carthage 
and Rome, and between Rome and the rest of the 
universe. 

But see William Penn, with weaponless hand, sit- 
ting down peaceably with his followers in the midst 
of savage nations, whose only occupation was shed- 
ding the blood of their fellow-men, disarming them 
by his justice, and teaching them for the first time to 
view a stranger without distrust. See them bury their 
tomahawks in his presence so deep that man shall 
never be able to find them again. See them under 
the shade of the thick groves of Coaquannock extend 
the bright chain of friendship, and solemnly promise 
to preserve it as long as the sun and moon shall en- 
dure. See him then with his companions establish- 
ing his commonwealth on the sole basis of religion, 



284 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

morality, and universal love, and adopting as the fun- 
damental maxim of his government the rule handed 
down to us from heaven: " Glory to God on high, and 
on earth peace, and good-will to men." 

Here was a spectacle for the potentates of the earth 
to look upon, an example for them to imitate. But 
the potentates of the earth did not see, or, if they saw, 
they turned away their eyes from the sight; they did 
not hear, or, if they heard, they shut their ears against 
the voice that cried out to them from the wilderness : 

"Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere clivos." 
The character of William Penn alone sheds a nev- 
er fading luster on our history. 



Burial of Sir John Moore.— Wolfe. 

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 
As his corse to the rampart we hurried; 

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 
O'er the grave where our hero we buried. 

We buried him darkly at dead of night, 
The sods with our bayonets turning, 

By the struggling moonbeams' misty light, 
And the lantern dimly burning. 

No useless coffin inclosed his breast, 

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; 

But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, 
With his martial cloak around him. 

Few and short were the prayers we said, 
And we spoke not a word of sorrow; 

But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, 
And we bitterly thought of the morrow. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 285 

"We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed, 
And smoothed down his lonely pillow, 

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er 
his head, 
And we far away on the billow. 

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, 
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him; — 

But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on 
In the grave where a Briton has laid him. 

But half our heavy task was done, 

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; 
And we heard the distant random gun 

That the foe was sullenly firing. 

Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; 

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, 
But we left him alone with his glory. 



A Farewell to Scotland. — Pringle. 

Our native land, our native vale, 

A long and last adieu: 
Farewell to bonny Teviotdale, 

And Cheviot mountains blue. 

Farewell, ye hills of glorious deeds, 
And streams renowned in song. 

Farewell, ye blithesome braes and meads, 
Our hearts have loved so long. 

Farewell, ye bonny elfin knowes, 
Where thyme and harebells grow; 

Farewell, ye hoary, haunted howes, 
O'er hung with birk and sloe. 



286 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

The battle mound, the Border tower, 

That Scotia's annals tell; 
The martyr's grave, the lover's bower, 

To each, to all, farewell! 

Home o£ our hearts, our father's home, 
Land of the brave and free, 

The sail is napping on the foam 
That bears us far from thee! 

We' seek a wild and distant shore 
Beyond the Atlantic main; 

We leave thee to return no more, 
Nor view thy cliffs again! 

But may dishonor blight our fame, 
And quench our household fires, 

When we, or ours, forget thy name, 
Green island of our sires. 

Our native land, our native vale, 

A long, a last adieu; 
Farewell to bonny Teviotdale, 

And Scotland's mountains blue. 



America.— Phillips. 
I appeal to history! Tell me, thou reverend chron- 
icler of the grave, can all the illusions of ambition 
realized, can all the wealth of a universal commerce, 
can all the achievements of successful heroism, or 
all the establishments of this world's wisdom se- 
cure to empire the permanency of its possessions? 
Alas! Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam 
lives only in song! Thebes thought so once; yet her 
hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs 
are but as the dust they were vainly intended to com- 
memorate! So thought Palmyra; where is she? So 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 287 

thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spar- 
tan; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and 
Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, enervate Ot- 
toman. In his hurried march Time has but looked 
at their imagined immortality; and all its vanities 
from the palace to the tomb have, with their ruins, 
erased the very impression of his footsteps. The 
days of their glory are as if they had never been; and 
the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected 
in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their 
commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their 
philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the in- 
spiration of their bards. Who shall say, then, con- 
templating the past, that England, proud and potent 
as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, 
and the young America yet soar to be what Athens 
was? Who shall say that, when the European col- 
umn shall have moldered into the dust, and the 
night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that 
mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon 
to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant? 



Flogging in the Navy. — Commodore Stockton. 

There is one broad proposition upon which I stand. 
It is this: that an American sailor is an American 
citizen, and that no American citizen shall, with my 
consent, be subjected to the infamous punishment of 
the lash. Placing myself upon this proposition, I am 
prepared for any consequences. I love the navy. 
And when I speak of the navy I mean the humblest 
sailor as well as the highest officer. They are all my 
fellow-citizens and yours; and, come what may, my 
voice will ever be raised against a punishment which 



288 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

degrades my countrymen to the level of the brute, 
and destroys all that is worth living for— personal 
honor and self-respect, 

In many a bloody conflict has the superiority of 
the American sailor decided the battle in our favor. 
I desire to secure and preserve that superiority. But 
can nobleness of sentiment or honorable pride of char- 
acter dwell with one whose every muscle has been 
made to quiver under the lash? Can he long continue 
to love a country whose laws crush out all the dignity 
of manhood and rouse all the exasperation of hate in 
his breast? 

Look to your history — that part of it which the 
world knows by heart — and you will find on its bright- 
est pages the glorious achievements of the American 
sailor. Whatever his country has done to disgrace 
and break his spirit, he has never disgraced her. 
Man for man, he asks no odds ; he cares for no odds 
when the cause of humanity and the glory of his 
country call him to fight. Who, in the darkest days 
of our Revolution, carried your flag into the very 
chops of the British Channel, bearded the lion in his 
den, and awoke the echo of old Albion's hills by the 
thunder of his cannon and the shouts of his triumph? 
In was the American sailor, and the names of John 
Paul Jones and the " Bon Homme Richard " will go 
down the annals of time forever. 

Who struck the first blow that humbled the Barbary 
flag, which for a hundred years had been the terror 
of Christendom; drove it from the Mediteranean, and 
put an end to the infamous tribute it had been accus- 
tomed to exact? It was the American sailor; and the 
names of Decatur and his gallant companions will be as 
lasting as monumental brass. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 289 

In your war of 1812, wlien your arms on shore were 
covered by disaster, when Winchester had been de- 
feated, when the Army of the North-west had surren- 
dered, and when the gloom of despondency hung like 
a cloud over the land, who first relit the fires of na- 
tional glory and made the welkin ring with shouts of 
victory? It was the American sailor, and the names 
Hull and the " Constitution " will be remembered as 
long as we have any thing left worth remembering. 
The wand of British invincibility was broken when the 
flag of " Guerriere " came down. 

That one event was worth more to the republic than 
all the money which has been expended for the navy. 
Since that day the navy has had no stain upon its 
national escutcheon, but has been cherished as your 
pride and glory; and the American sailor has estab- 
lished throughout the world, in peace and in war, in 
storm and in battle, a reputation for heroism and 
prowess unsurpassed. 

Salathiel to Titus. — Croly. 

Son of Vespasian, I am at this hour a poor man, 
as I may in the next be an exile or a slave. I have 
ties to life as strong as ever were bound round the 
heart of man; I stand here a suppliant for the life of 
one whose loss would embitter mine! Yet not for 
wealth unlimited, for the safety of my family, for the 
life of the noble victim who is now standing at the 
place of torture, dare I abandon, dare I think the 
impious thought of abandoning the cause of the city 
of Holiness. 

Titus! in the name of that Being to whom the wis- 
dom of the earth is folly I adjure you to beware. 
Jerusalem is sacred. Her crimes have often wrought 
19 



290 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

her misery, often lias she been trampled by the ar- 
mies of the stranger; but she is still the city of the 
Omnipotent, and never was blow inflicted upon her 
by man that was not terribly repaid. 

The Assyrian came, the mightiest power of the 
world; he plundered her temples and led her people 
into captivity. How long was it before his empire 
was a dream, his dynasty extinguished in blood, and 
an enemy on his throne? The Persian came; from 
her protector he turned into her oppressor, and his 
empire was swept away like the dust of the desert! 
The Syrian smote her; the smiter died in agonies of 
remorse, and where is his kingdom now? The Egyp- 
tian smote her; and who now sits on the throne of the 
Ptolemies? Pompey came; the invincible, jbhe con- 
queror of a thousand cities, the light of Rome, the 
lord of Asia, riding on the very wings of victory. 
But he profaned her temple; and from that hour he 
went down — down, like a millstone plunged into the 
ocean ! Blind counsel, rash ambition, womanish fears 
were upon the great statesman and warrior of Borne. 
Where does he sleep? What sands were colored 
with his blood? The universal conqueror died a 
slave, by the hand of a slave! Crassus came at the 
head of the legions; he plundered the sacred vessels 
of the sanctuary. Vengeance followed him, and he 
was cursed by the curse of God. Where are the 
bones of the robber and his followers? Go tear 
them from the jaws of the lion and the wolf of Par- 
thia — their fitting tomb! 

You, too, son of Vespasian, may be commissioned 
for the punishment of a stiff-necked and rebellious 
people. You may scourge our naked vice by force of 
arms; and then you may return to your own land ex- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 291 

tilting in the conquest of the fiercest enemy of Rome. 
But shall yon escape the common fate of the instru- 
ment of evil? Shall you see a peaceful old age? 
Shall a son of yours ever sit upon the throne? 
Shall not rather some monster of your blood efface 
the memory of your virtues and make Rome, in bit- 
terness of soul, curse the Flavian name? 



Washington.— Phillips. 
It matters very little what immediate spot may be 
the birthplace of such a man as Washington. No 
people can claim, no country can appropriate him; 
the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame 
is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it 
was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our 
policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had 
his origin. If the heavens thundered and the earth 
rocked, yet when the storm passed how pure was the 
climate that it cleared! how bright in the brow of 
the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us! 
In the production of Washington it does really ap- 
pear as if nature was endeavoring to improve upon 
herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world 
were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot 
of the new. Individual instances no doubt there 
were — splendid exemplifications of some single qual- 
fication: Caesar was merciful, Scipio was continent, 
Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Wash- 
ington to blend them all in one, and, like the lovely 
masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one 
glow of associated beauty the pride of every model 
and the perfection of every master. As a general he 
marshaled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied 



292 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

by discipline the absence of experience; as a states- 
man he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the 
most comprehensive system of general advantage; 
and such was the wisdom of his views and the phi- 
losophy of his counsels that to the soldier and the 
statesman he almost added the character of the 
sage ! 

A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of 
blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of 
treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and 
his country called him to the command. Liberty 
unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory re- 
turned it. If he had paused here, history might have 
doubted what station to assign him; whether at the 
head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her 
patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, 
and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, 
after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its 
crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life 
to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to 
have created! 

How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, 
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage ! 
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee 
Far less than thou hast forborne to be." 



America. 
If as a man, I venerate the mention of America, 
what must be my feelings toward her as an Irish- 
man. Never, O never, while memory remains, can 
Ireland forget the home of her emigrant and the 
asylum of her exile. No matter whether their sorrows 
sprung from the errors of enthusiasm, or the reality 
of suffering, from fancy or infliction, that must be re- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 293 

served from the scrutiny of those whom the lapse of 
time shall acquit of partiality. It is for the men of 
other ages to investigate and record it; but surely it 
is for the men of every age to hail the hospitality 
that received the shelterless, and love the feeling that 
befriended the unfortunate. Search creation round, 
where can you find a country that presents so sub- 
lime a view, so interesting anticipation ? What noble 
institutions! What a comprehensive policy! What 
a wise equalization of every political advantage! 
The oppressed of all countries, the martyrs of every 
creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or 
superstitious frenzy may there find refuge; his in- 
dustry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition 
animated; with no restraint but those laws which 
are the same to all, and no distinction but that which 
his merit may originate. Who can deny that the ex- 
istence of such a country presents a subject for hu- 
man congratulation? Who can deny that its gigantic 
advancement affords a field for the most rational con- 
jecture? At the end of the very next century, if she 
proceeds as she seems to promise, what a wondrous 
spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall say for 
what purpose a mysterious Providence may not have 
designed her? Who shall say that when, in its fol- 
lies or its crimes, the Old World may have interred 
all the pride of its power and all the pomp of its civ- 
ilization, human nature may not find its destined 
renovation in the New? For myself, I have no doubt 
of it. I have not the least doubt, that when our 
temples and our trophies shall have moldered into 
dust; when the glories of our name shall be but the 
legend of tradition, and the light of our achievements 
live only in song — philosophy will rise again in the 



294 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of 
her Washington. 

The Adventukers in the Mayflower. — Everett. 
Me thinks I see it now, that one solitary, advent- 
urous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, 
freighted with the prospects of a future state, and 
bounded across the unknown sea. I behold it pur- 
suing, with a thousand misgivings the uncertain, 
the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks 
and months pass, and winter surprises them on the 
deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished for 
shore. I see them now scantily supplied with pro- 
visions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill- 
stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous 
route; and now, driven in fury before the raging 
tempest on the high and giddy waves, the awful voice 
of the storm howls through the rigging. The labor- 
ing masts seem struggling from their base; the dis- 
mal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as 
it were, from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and 
settles with ingulfing flood over the floating deck, 
and beats with deadening weight against the stag- 
gering vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, 
pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and 
landed at last, after a five months' voyage, on the ice- 
clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and weary from the 
voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending 
upon the charity of their ship-master for a draught 
of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on 
shore; without shelter; without means; surrounded 
by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of history, 
and tell me, upon any principle of human probabil- 
ity, what shall be the fate of this handful of advent- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 295 

urers. Tell me, man of military science, in how 
many months were they all swept off by the thirty 
savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of 
New England? Tell me, politician, how long did 
this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions 
and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant 
coast? Student of history, compare for me the baf- 
fled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned 
adventures of other times, and find a parallel of this. 
Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the house- 
less heads of women and children? was it hard 
labor and spare meals? was it disease? was it the 
tomahawk? was it the deep malady of a blighted 
hope, a mined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching 
in its last moments at the recollection of the loved 
and left beyond the sea? was it some or all of these 
united, that hurried this forsaken company to their 
melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither 
of these causes, that not all combined were able to 
blast this bud of hope? It is possible that from a 
beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much 
of admiration as pity, there has gone forth a progress 
so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so im- 
portant, a promise yet to be fulfilled, so glorious. 



Character of Napoleon. — Phillips. 
He is fallen! We may now pause before that splen- 
did prodigy which towered among us like some ancient 
ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnifi- 
cence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat 
upon the throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapped in the 
solitude of his own originality. A mind bold, inde- 
pendent, and decisive; a will despotic in its dictates, 



296 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

an energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience 
pliable to every touch o£ interest, marked the outline 
of this extraordinary character — the most extraordi- 
nary, perhaps, that in the annals of this world ever 
rose or reigned or fell. Flung into life in the midst 
of a revolution that quickened every energy of a peo- 
ple who acknowledged no superiors, he commenced 
his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by 
charity ! 

With no friend but his sword and no fortune but 
his talents he rushed into the lists where rank and 
wealth and genius had arrayed themselves, and com- 
petition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. 
He knew no motive but interest, he acknowledged no 
criterion but success, he worshiped no God but ambi- 
tion, and with an Eastern devotion he knelt at the 
shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this there was 
no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion 
that he did not promulgate; in the hope of dynasty, 
he upheld the crescent; for the sake of divorce, he 
bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he 
became the adopted child of the republic; and with a 
parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne 
and tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. 
A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the pope ; a pre- 
tended patriot, he impoverished the country; and, in 
the name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse and 
wore without shame the diadem of the Caesars! 



Necessity of Puke National Mokality. — Beechek. 
The crisis has come. By the people of this gener- 
ation, by ourselves, probably, the amazing question 
is to be decided whether the inheritance of our fa- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 297 

thers shall be preserved or thrown away; whether our 
Sabbaths shall be a delight or a loathing; whether the 
taverns, on that holy day, shall be crowded with 
drunkards, or the sanctuary of God with humble wor- 
shipers; whether riot and profaneness shall fill our 
streets and poverty our dwellings and convicts our 
jails and violence our land, or whether industry and 
temperance and righteousness shall be the stability 
of our times; whether mild laws shall receive the 
cheerful submission of freemen, or the iron rod of a 
tyrant compel the trembling homage of slaves. Be 
not deceived. The rocks and hills of New England 
will remain till the last conflagration. But let the 
Sabbath be profaned with impunity, the worship of 
God be abandoned, the government and religious in- 
struction of children be neglected, and the streams of 
intemperance be permitted to flow, and her glory will 
depart. The wall of fire will no longer surround her 
and the munition of rocks will no longer be her de- 
fense. The hand that overturns our doors and tem- 
ples is the hand of death unbarring the gate of pan- 
demonium and letting loose upon our land the crimes 
and miseries of hell. 

If the Most High should stand aloof and cast not 
a single ingredient into our cup of trembling, it 
would seem to be full of superlative woe. But he 
will not stand aloof. As we shall have begun an open 
controversy with him, he will contend openly with us. 
And never since the earth stood has it been so fearful 
a thing for nations to fall into the hands of the living 
God. The day of vengeance is at hand, the day of 
judgment has come, the great earthquake which sinks 
Babylon is shaking the nations, and the waves of the 
mighty commotion are dashing upon every shore. 



298 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Is this, then, a time to remove the foundations, when 
the earth itself is shaken? Is this the time to forfeit 
the protection of God, when the hearts of men are 
failing them for fear, and for looking after those 
things which are to come upon the earth? Is this 
the time to run upon his neck and the thick bosses of 
his buckler, when the nations are drinking blood and 
fainting, and passing away in his wrath ? Is this the 
time to throw away the shield of faith, when his ar- 
rows are drunk with the blood of the slain; to cut 
from the anchor of hope, when the clouds are collect- 
ing, and the sea and the waves are roaring, and thun- 
ders are uttering their voices, and lightnings blazing 
in the heavens, and the great hail is falling from 
heaven upon men, and every mountain, sea, and isl- 
and is fleeing in dismay from the face of an in- 
censed God? 

Corruption, the Cause of the Fall of States. — 
Croly. 
The Old World has already revealed to us in its un- 
sealed books the beginning and end of all its own 
marvelous struggles in the cause of liberty. Greece, 
lovely Greece, "the land of scholars and the nurse of 
arts," where sister republics in fair possessions chant- 
ed the praises of liberty and the gods, where and 
what is she? For two thousand years the oppressor 
has bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. 
The last sad relics of her temples are but the bar- 
racks of a ruthless soldiery: the fragments of her col- 
umns and her palaces are in the dust, yet beautiful in 
ruin. She fell not when the mighty were upon her. 
Her sons were united at Thermopylae and Marathon, 
and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 299 

Hellespont. She was conquered by her own factions. 
She fell by the hands of her own people. The man 
of Macedonia did not the work of destruction. It was 
already done by her own corruptions, banishments, 
and dissensions. Rome, republican Borne, whose ea- 
gles glanced in the rising and setting sun, where and 
what is she ? The eternal city yet remains, proud even 
in her desolation, noble in her decline, venerable in 
the majesty of religion, and calm as in the composure 
of death. The malaria has but traveled in the path 
worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen cent- 
uries have mourned over the loss of her empire. A 
mortal disease was upon her vitals before Csesar had 
crossed the Bubican; and Brutus did not restore her 
health by the deep probings of the senate chamber. 
The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of 
the North, completed only what was begun at home. 
Romans betrayed Borne. The legions were bought 
and sold, but the people offered the tribute money. 



Against the Infidelity of Thomas Paine. — Phil- 
lips. 
But, my lords, the fate of this half-infidel, half- 
trading martyr matters very little in comparison with 
that of the thousands he has corrupted. He has lit- 
erally disseminated a moral plague, against which 
even the nation's quarantine can scarce avail us. It 
has poisoned the fresh blood of infancy, it has dis- 
heartened the last hope of age; and hundreds must 
this instant be tainted with the infectious venom 
whose sting dies not with the destruction of the body, 
Imagine not because the pestilence smites not at 
once that its fatality is less certain; imagine not be- 



300 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

cause the lower orders are the earliest victims that 
those in the loftiest stations will not suffer in their 
turn. The most mortal chillness begins at the extrem- 
ities; and you may depend upon it, nothing but time 
and apathy are wanting to change this healthful land 
into a charnel-house, where murder, anarchy, and li- 
centiousness, and the whole hell-brood of infidelity 
will quaff the heart's blood of the consecrated and 
the noble. 

My lord, I am more indignant at these designs, be- 
cause they are sought to be concealed in the disguise 
of liberty. It is the duty of every real friend of lib- 
erty to tear the mask from the fiend who has usurped 
it. No! no! this is not our Island Goddess bearing 
the mountain freshness on her cheeks and scattering 
the valley's bounty from her hand, known by the 
lights that herald her fair presence, the peaceful virt- 
ues that attend her path, and the long blaze of glory 
that lingeis in her train. It is a demon, speaking 
fair indeed, tempting our faith with airy hopes and 
visionary realms, but even within the fpldings of its 
mantle hiding the bloody symbol of its purpose. 
Hear not its sophistry; guard your children assid- 
uously against it; draw around your homes the con- 
secrated circle which it dare not enter. You will find 
an amulet in the religion of your country: it is the 
great mound raised by the Almighty for the protec- 
tion of humanity. It stands between you and the 
lava of human passions; and, O believe me, if you 
wait tamely by while it is basely undermined, the 
fiery deluge will roll on, before which all that you 
hold venerable or sacred will wither into ashes. Be- 
lieve no one who tells you that the friends of freedom 
are now or ever were the enemies of religion. They 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 301 

know too well that rebellion against God cannot 
prove the basis of government for man; and that the 
loftiest structure that impiety can raise is but the 
Babel monument of its impotency and pride, mock- 
ing the builders with a moment's strength, and then 
covering them with inevitable confusion. Do you 
want an example? Then look to France. The mi- 
croscopic vision of your rabble blasphemers has not 
sight enough to contemplate the mighty minds that 
commenced her revolution. The wit, the sage, the 
orator, the hero — the whole family of genius — fur- 
nished forth their treasures, and gave them nobly to 
the nation's exigence. They had great provocation; 
they had a glorious cause; they had all that human 
potency could give them. Bnt relying too much on 
this human potency, they abjured their God, and, as 
a natural consequence, they murdered their king, 
culled their polluted deities from the brothel, and the 
fall of the idol extinguished the flame of the altar. 
They crowded their scaffold with all their country 
held of genius and of virtue, and when the peerage 
and the prelacy were exhausted, the mob-executioner 
of to-day became the mob-victim of to-morrow. 

No sex was spared, no age respected, no suffering 
pitied; and all this they did in the sacred name of 
liberty, though in the deluge of human blood they 
left not a mountain-top on which the ark of liberty 
could rest. But Providence was neither dead nor 
sleeping. It mattered not that for a moment their 
impiety seemed to prosper; that victory panted after 
their ensanguined banners; that as their insatiate 
eagle soared against the sun, he seemed to replume 
his wing and to renew his vision. It was only for a 
moment, and you see at last that in the very banquet 



302 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

of their triumph tlie Almighty's vengeance blazed 
upon the wall, and the diadem fell from the brow of 
the idolater. 

Extract from a Speech or Edmund Burke. 

Since I had the honor — should I not rather say the 
dishonor ? — of sitting in this house I have been witness 
to many strange, many infamous transactions. What 
can be your intention in attacking all honor and virt- 
ue? Do you mean to bring all men to a level with 
yourselves, and to extirpate honor and independence? 

Perhaps you imagine a vote will settle the whole 
controversy. Alas! you are not aware that the man- 
ner in which your vote is procured is a secret to no 
man. Listen: for if you are not totally callous, if 
your consciences are not seared, I will speak daggers 
to your souls, and wake you to all the hell of guilty 
recollection. I will follow you with whips and stings, 
through every maze of your unexampled turpitude, 
and plant thorns under the rose of ministerial appro- 
bation. You have flagrantly violated justice and the 
law of the land, and opened the door for anarchy and 
confusion. After assuming an arbitrary dominion 
over law and justice, you issue orders and warrants 
and proclamations against every opponent, and send 
prisoners to your bastile all those who have the cour- 
age and virtue to defend the freedom of their coun- 
try. But it is vain you hope by fear and terror to ex- 
tinguish the native British fire. The more sacrifices, 
the more martyrs you make, the more numerous the 
sons of liberty will become. They will multiply like 
the hydra, and hurl vengeance on your heads. Let 
others act as they will, while I have a tongue or an 
arm they shall be free. And that I may not be a wit- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 303 

ness of these monstrous proceedings, I will leave the 
House; nor do I doubt but every independent, every 
honest man, every friend to England, will follow me. 
These walls are unholy, baleful, deadly, while a pros- 
titute majority holds the bolt of parliamentary power, 
and hurls its vengeance only upon the virtuous. To 
yourselves, therefore, I consign you. Enjoy your pan- 
demonium. 



The American Patriot's Song. — Anonymous. 

Hark! hear ye the sounds that the winds on their 
pinions 
Exultingly roll from the shore to the sea, 
"With a voice that resounds through her boundless 
dominions! 
'Tis Columbia that calls on her sons to be free! 

Behold on yon summit, where heaven has throned 
her, 

How she starts from her proud, inaccessible seat; 
With nature's impregnable ramparts around her, 

And the cataract's thunder and foam at her feet! 

In the breeze of her mountains her loose locks are 
shaken, 

While the soul-stirring notes of her w T arrior song 
From the rock to the valley re-echo: "Awaken! 

Awaken, ye hearts that have slumbered too long' " 

Yes, despots! too long did your tyranny hold us, 
In vassalage vile ere its weakness was known; 

Till we learned that the links of the chain that con- 
trolled us 
Were forged by the fears of its captives alone. 



304 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

That spell is destroyed, and no longer availing, 
Despised as detested, pause well ere you dare 

To cope with a people whose spirit and feeling- 
Are roused by remembrance and steeled by despair. 

Go tame the wild torrent, or stem with a straw 

The proud surges that sweep o'er the strand that 
confines them; 
But presume not again to give freemen a law, 

Nor think with the chains they have broken to bind 
them. 

To hearts that the spirit of liberty flushes, 
Resistance is idle, and numbers a dream: 

They burst from control as the mountain stream 
rushes 
From its fetters of ice, in the warmth of the beam. 



Darkness.— Byron. 
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 
Did wander, darkling, in the eternal space, 
Bayless and pathless, and the icy earth 
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; 
Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day; 
And men forgot their passions in the dread 
Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light. 

Some lay down, 
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest 
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; 
And others hurried to and fro, and fed 
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up, 
With mad disquietude, on the dull sky, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 305 

The pall of a past world; and then again, 
With curses, cast them down upon the dust, 
And gnashed their teeth, and howled. 

The wild birds shrieked, 
And, terrified, did nutter on the ground, 
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes 
Came, tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled 
And twined themselves among the multitude, 
Hissing, but stingless; they were slain for food. 
The meager by the meager were devoured; 
E'en dogs assailed their masters — all save one, 
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, 
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead, 
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, 
But, with a piteous and perpetual moan, 
And a quick desolate cry, and licking the hand 
Which answered not with a caress, he died. 
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two 
Of an enormous city did survive, 
And they were enemies. They met beside 
The dying embers of an altar-place, 
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things 
For an unholy usage; they raked up, 
And shivering, scraped, with their cold, skeleton 

hands, 
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 
Blew for a little life, and made a flame, 
Which was a mockery: then they lifted 
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 
Each other's aspects; saw, and shrieked, and died j 
Even of their mutual hideousness they died; 
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 
Famine had written fiend. The world was void: 
20 



30G THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

The populous and the powerful was a lump — 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, nianless, lifeless: 

A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lake, and ocean all stood still, 

And nothing stirred within their silent depths; 

Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they 

dropped, 
They slept on the abyss without a surge: 
The waves were dead, the tides were in their graves, 
The moon, their mistress, had expired before; 
The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 
And the clouds perished: darkness had no need 
Of aid from them; she was the universe. 



Pulaski's Banneb — Anonymous. 

The standard of Count Pulaski, the noble Pole who fell in the 
attack on Savannah during the American Revolution, was of 
crimson silk, embroidered by the Moravian nuns of Bethlehem, 
Penn. 

When the dying flame of day 

Through the chancel shot its ray, 

Far the glimmering tapers shed 

Faint light on the cowled head, 

And the censer burning swung 

Where before the altar hung 

That proud banner which with prayer 

Had been consecrated there; 

And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while 

Sung low in the deep, mysterious aisle. 

Take thy banner. May it wave 
Proudly o'er the good and brave, 
When the battle's distant wail 
Wakes the Sabbath of our vale, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 307 

When the clarion's music thrills 
To the hearts of these lone hills, 
When the spear in conflict shakes, 
And the strong lance shivering breaks. 

Take thy banner, and beneath 
The war-clouds' encircling wreath, 
Guard it till our homes are free; 
Guard it, God will prosper thee ! 
In the dark and trying hour, 
In the breaking forth of power, 
In the rush of steeds and men, 
His right hand will shield thee then. 

Take thy banner. But when night 
Closes round the ghastly fight, 
If the vanquished warrior bow, 
Spare him, by our holy vow, 
By our prayers and many tears, 
By the mercy that endears; 
Spare him: he our love hath shared; 
Spare him as thou wouldst be spared. 

Take thy banner; and if e'er 

Thou should press the soldier's bier, 

And the muffled drum should beat 

To the tread of mournful feet, 

Then this crimson flag shall be 

Martial cloak and shroud for thee ! 

And the warrior took that banner proud, 

And it was his martial cloak and shroud. 



Byron. — Pollok. 
He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced, 
As some vast river of unfailing source, 



308 THE PEARL SPEAKER 

Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed, 
And ope'd new fountains in the human heart. 

With nature's self 
He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest 
At will with all her glorious majesty. 
He laid his hand upon "the ocean's mane," 
And played familiar with his hoary locks, 
Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines; 
And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend; 
And wove his garland of the lightning's wing 
In sportive twist, the lightning's fiery wing; 
Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God, 
Marching on the storm in vengeance, seemed — 
Then turned, and with the grasshopper, which sung 
His evening song beneath his feet, conversed. 
Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters were; 
Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and 

storms 
His brothers — younger brothers, whom he scarce 
As equals deemed. 

As some fierce comet of tremendous size, 
To which the stars did reverence as it passed ; 
So he through learning and through fancy took 
His flight sublime, and on the loftiest top 
Of Fame's dread mountain sat: not soiled and worn, 
As if he from the earth had labored up; 
But as some bird of heavenly plumage fair, 
He looked, which down from higher regions came, 
And perched there, to see what lay beneath. 
Great man! the nations gazed, and wondered much, 
And praised; and many called his evil good. 
Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness: 
And kings to do him honor took delight. 
Thus full of titles, flattery, honor, fame, 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 309 

Beyond desire, beyond ambition full, 

He died— he died of what? Of wretchedness. 

Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump 

Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts 

That common millions might have quenched — then 

died 
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink. 



Only a Pkivate. — F. W. Dawson. 
Only a private! his jacket of gray 

Is stained by the smoke and the dust; 
As Bayard he's brave; as Rupert he's gay; 
Reckless as Murat in heat of the fray, 

But in God is his only trust. 

Only a private! to march, and to fight, 
To suffer and starve and be strong; 
With knowledge enough to know that the might 
Of justice and truth, and freedom and right, 
In the end must crush out the wrong. 

Only a private! no ribbon or star 
Shall gild with false glory his name; 

No honors for him in braid or in bar, 

His Legion of Honor is only a scar, 
And his wounds are his roll of fame! 

Only a private! one more here slain 

On the field lies silent and chill! 
And in the far South a wife prays in vain 
One clasp of the hand she may ne'er clasp again, 

One kiss from the lips that are still. 

Only a private! there let him sleep! 
He will need neither tablet nor stone; 



110 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

For the mosses and vines o'er his grave will creep, 
And at night the stars through the clouds will peep, 
And watch him who lies there alone. 

Only a martyr, who fought and who fell 
Unknown and unmarked in the strife! 
But still as he lies in his lonely cell 
Angel and seraph the legend shall tell: 
Such a death is eternal life. 



Sheeidan at the Trial of Warren Hastings. 

There was something in their effort to ridicule the 
attachment of mother to son; something in this in- 
tention to prohibit the reverence of son to mother; 
something in this determination to destroy filial and 
maternal tenderness, that was so vilely loathsome with 
all that was horrible to create aversion, as to excite 
overpowering disgust! If it were not a part of my 
duty, it would be superfluous to speak of the ties 
which those aliens to feeling, those apostates to hu- 
manity, had thus divided. In such an assembly as 
that before which I speak there is not an eye but 
must look reproof to this conduct, not a heart but 
must anticipate its condemnation! Filial piety ! It 
is the primal bond of society! It is that instinctive 
principle which, panting for its proper good, soothes 
each sense and sensibility of man. It is that grati- 
tude which, softening under the sense of recollected 
good, is eager to own the vast countless debt it never 
can pay, for so many long years of unceasing so- 
licitude, honorable self-denials, life-preserving cares. 
It is that part of our practice where duty drops its 
awe, where reverence refines into love. It asks no 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 311 

aid of memory, and it needs no deduction of reason. 
Pre-existing, paramount over all law or human rule, 
few arguments can increase it and none can diminisli 
it. It is the sacrament of oar nature, the duty and 
the indulgence of man. It is his first great privilege, 
as it is among his last, most endearing delights. 
When the bosom glows with the idea of reciprocated 
love; when emotion is fixed into vital principle; when 
instinct becomes habituated into a master passion; 
when these sway all the sweetest energies of man, 
and hang over each vicissitude of all that must pass 
away, how tenderly and sweetly they aid the melan- 
choly virtues in their last sad tasks of life to explore 
the thought, to explain the aching eye, to cheer the 
languors of decrepitude and age. 

Conclusion of Preceding. 

Where the British flag was flying — that ought to 
have sent out rays of light and hope — men were 
doomed to deeper dungeons, heavier chains, and se- 
verer punishments. There where that flag was dis- 
played — which was wont to cheer the depressed and to 
dilate the subdued heart of misery — these venerable 
but unfortunate men were fated to encounter some- 
thing lower than perdition, and something blacker 
than despair. 

There is, there must be, a justice that will mete 
out due reward for this catalogue of crimes and ag- 
gravations, that will punish all this human malignity, 
this human vengeance. 

But this justice is not a halt and miserable object. 
It is not the ineffective bauble of an Indian pagod. 
It is not the portentous phantom of despair, nor is it 
like any fabled monster formed in the eclipse of rea- 



312 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

son, and found in some unhallowed grove of supersti- 
tious darkness and political dismay. 

No, my lords! In the happy reverse of all this, I 
turn from this disgusting caricature to the real im- 
age. Justice I have now before me, august and pure 
— the abstract idea of all that would be perfect in the 
spirits and aspirations of men; a justice where the 
mind rises, where the heart expands, where the coun- 
tenance is ever placid and benign; a justice whose 
favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate, to res- 
cue, to relieve, to succor, and to save; a justice ma- 
jestic from its mercy, venerable from its utility, be- 
neficent in every preference, and lovely though in 
her frown. 

On this sure and deliberate justice, abstracted from 
all party purpose and political speculation, I rely. 
By the rights it is your best privilege to preserve, by 
the fame it is your best pleasure to inherit — by those 
feelings which refer to the first term in the series of 
existence, the original compact of our nature, we call 
on you to administer to truth and justice as they 
would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves, with 
the most exalted bliss possible for our nature — the 
self-approving consciousness of virtue, when the con- 
demnation w T e look for, w T ill be one of the most ample 
mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation 
of the world. 

exteact from eulogy on james b. beck. — j. j. 

Ingalls. 
Nations die; races expire; and humanity itself is 
destined to extinction. Sooner or later the energy of 
the earth will be expended, and it will become inca- 
pable of supporting life. At some far distant day a 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 313 

group of feeble and pallid survivors, in some shel- 
tered gallery of the tropics, will behold the sun sink- 
behind the horizon and the pitiless stars glitter in the 
midnight sky. The last man will perish, and the sun 
will rise upon an earth without an inhabitant. Its 
atmosphere ; its seas, its life and heart will vanish, 
and the planet will be an idle cinder uselessly spin- 
ning in its orbit. 

Every hour some world dies unnoticed in the fir- 
mament; some sun smothers to embers and ashes on 
the hearth-stone of infinite space, and the mighty 
maze of systems sweeps ceaselessly onward in its voy- 
age of doom to remorseless and unsparing destruction. 

With the disappearance of man from the earth all 
traces of his existence will be lost. The palaces, 
towers, and temples he has reared ; the books, the 
creeds, the philosophies he has formulated ; all sci- 
ence, literature, art, and knowledge will be obliter- 
ated and ingulfed in empty and vacant oblivion. 

There is an Intelligence so vast and enduring that 
the flaming intervals between the birth and death of 
universes is no more than the flash of fireflies above 
the meadows of summer. There is a colossal Power 
by which these stupendous orbs are launched in the 
abyss, like bubbles blown by a child in the morning 
sun. There is an Omniscience whose sense of reason 
and justice cannot be less potential than those im- 
mutable statutes that are the law of being for the 
creatures that he has made, and which compel them 
to declare that if the only object of creation is de- 
struction, if infinity is the theater of an uninterrupt- 
ed series of irreparable calamities, if the final cause 
of life is death — then time is an inexplicable tragedy, 
and eternity an illogical and indefensible catastrophe. 



314 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

No, Mr. President, this obsequy is for the quick, 
and not for the dead. It is not an inconsolable lam- 
entation, but it is a strain of triumph. It is an af- 
firmation to those who survive that our departed 
associate, contemplating at the close of his life the 
monument of good deeds he had erected — more en- 
during than brass, and better than the pyramids of 
kings — might exclaim with the Eoman poet: "I shall 
not all die." So turning up the silent and unknown 
future, he could rely with just and reasonable con- 
fidence upon that most impressive and momentous 
assurance ever delivered to the human race: "He 
that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall 
he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me 
shall never die." 

Irish Aliens.— E. L. Shiel. 
Disdaining all imposture, and abandoning all re- 
serve, that man, whose talents and boldness have 
placed him in the topmost place in his party, dis- 
tinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that 
they are not entitled to the same privileges as En- 
glishmen — that they are "aliens." Aliens? Good 
heavens ! Was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the 
House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim : 
"Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty? " The bat- 
tles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed ought to have 
come back upon him. He ought to have remembered 
that, from the earliest achievement in which he dis- 
played that military genius which has placed him 
foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to 
that last and surpassing combat which has made his 
name imperishable — from Assaye to Waterloo — the 
Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 315 

the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which 
his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose 
were the arms that drove your bayonets at Yimiera 
through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock 
of battle before? What desperate valor climbed the 
steeps and filled the moats of Badajoz? All, all his 
victories should have rushed and crowded back upon 
his memory: Yimiera, Salamanca, Toulouse, and last 
of all the greatest —tell me, for you were there — I 
appeal to a gallant soldier before me— tell me, for 
you must needs remember— on that day when the 
destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, 
while death fell in showers— when the artillery of 
France, leveled with the precision of the most dead- 
ly science, played upon them — when her legions, in- 
cited by the voice and inspired by the example of 
their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the 
onset — tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for 
au instant was to be lost — tell me if the "aliens" 
blenched ! And when at length the moment for the 
last decisive movement had arrived ; when the valor, 
so long wisely checked, was at last let loose; when 
with words familiar, but immortal, the great captain 
commanded the great assault — tell me if Catholic Ire- 
land, with less heroic valor than the natives of your 
own glorious isle, precipitated herself upon the foe ! 
The blood of England, Scotland, Ireland flowed in 
the same stream, drenched the same field. When the 
chill morning dawned their dead lay cold and stark 
together; in the same deep pit their bodies were de- 
posited ; the green corn of spring is now breaking 
upon their union in the grave ! Partakers in every 
peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted to par- 
ticipate? and shall we be told, as a requital, that we 



316 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

are estranged from the noble country for whose sal- 
vation our life-blood was poured out? 



Archer Anderson at the Dedication of the Mon- 
ument to Lee. 
As the people saw Bobert E. Lee with antique 
simplicity putting aside every temptation to nse his 
great fame for vulgar gain; as they saw him, in self- 
respecting contentment with the frugal earnings of 
his personal labor, refusing every offer of pecuniary 
assistance ; as they realized his unselfish devotion of 
all that remained of strength and life to the nurture 
of Southern youth in knowledge and morals, a new 
conviction of his wisdom and virtue gathered force and 
volume, and spread into all lands. The failure of the 
righteous cause for which he fought denied him that 
eminence of civil station in which his great qualities 
in their happy mixture might well have afforded a 
parallel to the strength and moderation of Washing- 
ton. But what failure could obscure that moral per- 
fection which places him as easily by the side of the 
best men that ever lived, as his heroic actions make 
him the peer of the greatest? There are men whose 
influence on mankind neither worldly success nor 
worldly failure can affect. 

The greatest gift the hero leaves his race 
Is to have been a hero. 

As long as our people truly love and venerate him, 
there will remain in them a principle of good; for 
all the stupendous wealth and power which in the 
last thirty years have lifted these States to foremost 
rank among the nations of the earth are less a sub- 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 317 

ject of pride than this one heroic man, this lmm an 
product of our country and its institutions. 

Let this monument, then, teach to generations un- 
born these lessons of his life. Let it stand, not as a 
record of civil strife, but as a perpetual protest 
against whatever is low and sordid in our public and 
private objects. Let it stand as a memorial of per- 
sonal honor that never brooked a stain, of knightly 
valor without thought of self, of far-reaching mili- 
tary ambition, of heroic constancy from which no 
cloud of misfortune could ever hide the path of duty. 
Let it stand for reproof and censure, if our people 
should ever sink below the standards of our fathers. 

Let it stand for patriotic hope and cheer, if a day 
of national gloom and disaster shall dawn upon our 
country. Let it stand as the embodiment of a brave 
and virtuous people's ideal leader. Let it stand as a 
great public act of thanksgiving and praise, for that 
it pleased Almighty God to bestow upon these South- 
ern States a man so formed to reflect His attributes 
of power, majesty, and goodness. 



B. H. Hill at Atlanta in 1876. 
We will do justice to the colored man. We are un- 
der the very highest obligations of a brave manhood 
to do justice to the negro. While he is not our equal, 
he is in our power, and cowardice takes no meaner 
shape than when power oppresses weakness. But in 
the name of civilization, in the name of forty millions 
of living whites and of hundreds of millions of their 
coming children, in the name of every principle rep- 
resented by that banner above us, I do protest to-day 
that there is nothing in statesmanship, nothing in 



318 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

philanthropy, and nothing in patriotism which justi- 
fies the peril or destruction of the rights and liberties 
of the white race in crazy wranglings over the rights 
and liberties of the black race. We have shed more 
white blood and wasted more white treasure in four 
years over the liberties of the negro in these States 
than the entire negro race of the world has shed and 
wasted for their own liberties in all the ages of the 
earth! And all this at the bidding of sectional dem- 
agogues who still cry for more. 

And hundreds of these demagogues are now ha- 
ranguing the honest masses of the North, seeking to 
retain themselves in power by keeping alive the pas- 
sions of sectional hate, at the hazard of every right 
and of every liberty intended to be preserved and 
protected by the American Union! God of our fa- 
thers! how long, O how long shall this madness con- 
tinue to successfully usurp the places, to disgrace the 
functions of elevated statesmanship? 

My countrymen, have you studied this wonderful 
system of "free constitutional government?" To 
him who loves liberty it is more enchanting than ro- 
mance, more bewitching than love, and more elevating 
than any other science. The snows that fall on 
Mount Washington are not purer than the motives 
which begat it. The fresh dew-laden zephyrs from 
the orange-groves of the South are not sweeter than 
the hopes its advent inspired. The flight of our own 
symbolic eagle, though he blow his breath on the 
sun, cannot be higher than its expected destiny. And 
is that high expected destiny all eclipsed, and that be- 
fore its noon? No! forever no! Patriots North, pa- 
triots South, patriots everywhere, let us close our ears 
to the men and parties that teach us to hate each other. 



THE PEARL SPEAKER. 319 

Raise high that flag of our fathers! Let Southern 
breezes kiss it, and Southern skies reflect it! South- 
ern patriots will love it, Southern sons will defend it, 
and Southern heroes will die for it ! And as its folds 
unfurl beneath the heavens, let our voices unite and 
swell the loud invocation: Flag of our Union, wave 
on! wave ever! But wave over freemen, not over 
subjects! wave over States, riot over provinces! And 
now let the voices of patriots from the North, from 
the East, from the West, join our voices from the 
South, and send to heaven one universal according 
chorus: Wave on, O flag of our fathers, forever! 
But wave over a union of equals, not over a despot- 
ism of lords and vassals; over a land of law, of lib- 
erty, of peace, and not of anarchy, of oppression, and 
of strife. 

B. F. Wabd at Winona, Miss. 

The South was confronted with two bare and im- 
perative propositions: war or degradation. 

If there is a son who would have chosen the mean 
alternative, he is unworthy of the heroic sire who ac- 
cepted the issue of battle. 

Place the true history of the country before the 
youth of this splendid land, and they will love and 
venerate the noble deeds, the brilliant and unsullied 
records, the glorious memories and traditions of 
the South. They will understand that their grand 
achievements during the last two decades in rescuing 
this land from the wreck and desolation left in the 
wake of tyranny, corruption, and barbarian rule are 
simply manifestations of the spirit of the father in 
the son, and not the transfusion of new energies from 
alien sources. 



320 THE PEARL SPEAKER. 

Then, my fellow- citizens, let us teach our boys that 
they may safely stand by the record of their fathers. 

Teach them, moreover, under all conditions and at 
every hazard to stand by the supremacy of the white 
man. This government is your estate; it has de- 
scended to you through hundreds of generations of 
white civilization. Your heritage goes back in un- 
broken title through all the ages of white progress 
and white domination to the very dawn of the era of 
man. It is yours by inheritance, yours by purchase, 
yours by conquest. 

Above all, teach them to love and honor and de- 
fend the character of the good and pure and patriotic 
women of the South, as the true source of her future 
greatness and grandeur and glory. Tell them never 
to forget — as they gaze in proud admiration upon the 
towering shafts that will kiss the clouds of the com- 
ing centuries in commemoration of the virtues of 
Washington and Lee and Jackson, of Calhoun and 
Clay and Jefferson and Johnson and Ben Hill — that 
higher still than grateful hearts and faithful hands 
can pile the monumental stone hover the spirits of 
the mothers who gave to the South these immortal 
sons. 







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